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OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 
(SECOND   SERIES) 


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OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS.  First  Series.  Crown 
8vo.  6s.  net. 

THE      PHILOSOPHY     OF      PLOTINUS. 

The    Gifford    Lectures    at    St.   Andrews, 
1917-1918.     2  vols.     8vo. 

SPECULUM  ANIMAE:  Four  Devotional 
Addresses  given  :n  the  Chapel  of  Corpus 
Christi  College,  Cambridge,  to  Publ  c 
Schoolmasters  and  College  Tutors.  Fcp. 
8vo.  3s.  net.* 

THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  AGE:  Four 
Lectures  delivered  at  Sion  College  to  the 
Women's  Diocesan  Association  on  '  The 
Co-operation  of  the  Chuich  with  the  Spirit 
of  the  Age.'  Fcp.  8vo.  3s.  net. 


LONGMANS,    GREEN    AND     CO. 

LONDON,       NEW       YORK,       TORONTO 
BOMBAY,     CALCUTTA,     AND     MADUAS 


\  p    £>tofc> 

OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

(SECOND  SERIES) 


BY 

WILLIAM  EALPH  INGE,  C.V.O.,  D.D.,  F.B.A. 


DEAN   OF    ST.    PAUL'S 


SECOND    IMPRESSION 


LONGMANS,    GREEN    AND    CO. 

39  PATERNOSTER  ROW,   LONDON,   E.G.  4. 

NEW   YORK,    TORONTO 
BOMBAY,  CALCUTTA  AND  MADRAS 

1922 

All   rights   reserved 


rlC? 

T  TL> 

I  v        J  f  V      •- 


Edition,  September  1922 
New  Impression,  November  1922 


Made  in  Great  Britain 


PREFACE 

IT  is  always  difficult  to  choose  a  title  for  a  book  of  essays, 
and  it  seemed  most  convenient  to  repeat  the  name  of  the 
little  volume  which  was  published  three  years  ago.  Those 
essays  were  in  part  a  challenge  to  certain  idols  of  the 
market-place  and  theatre,  and  I  thought  it  legitimate  to 
mark  the  purpose  or  tendency  of  the  book  on  the  title- 
page.  But  I  have  no  wish  to  pose  as  a  prophet  crying 
in  the  wilderness.  The  events  of  the  last  few  years  have, 
it  is  to  be  hoped,  taught  something  both  to  my  critics 
and  to  myself ;  they  have  perhaps  even  brought  us  nearer 
together.  In  any  case,  the  present  volume  contains 
nothing  very  daring  or  unconventional,  and  if  it  had  stood 
alone  I  should  have  chosen  a  less  provocative  title. 

The  greater  part  of  the  book  consists  of  hitherto 
unpublished  matter.  Confessio  Fidei  is  an  attempt  to  put 
in  order  what  I  actually  believe,  and  to  explain  why  I 
believe  it.  I  shall  be  classified,  I  suppose,  as  belonging  to 
the  right  wing  of  theological  liberalism.  But  I  prefer  to 
call  myself  a  Christian  Platonist,  and  to  claim  a  humble 
place  in  the  long  chain  of  Christian  thinkers  whose  philo- 
sophy is  based  on  the  Platonic  tradition.  That  chain  has 
been  unbroken  from  the  first  century  to  our  own  day, 
and  in  English  theology  it  has  had  a  very  honourable 
record.  It  should,  I  think,  be  recognised  as  a  third  school 
of  thought  in  the  Church,  not  less  legitimate,  nor  less  pro- 
ductive of  good  fruits,  than  the  Catholic  and  Protestant 
parties,  which  in  ecclesiastical  politics  are  so  much  more 
active  and  prominent. 

The  Hibbert  Lectures  were  delivered  at  Oxford  in  1920  ; 
the  subject  was  suggested  to  me  by  my  friend  Dr.  Jacks. 


vi  PREFACE 

The  five  lectures  are  a  sketch  of  the  interaction  df 
political  and  religious  ideas  in  history,  with  special  refer- 
ence to  present  problems.  The  subject  is  interesting  and 
important ;  but  the  treatment  is  necessarily  cursory  and 
superficial,  mainly  from  lack  of  space,  but  also,  as  regards 
the  medieval  period,  from  insufficient  knowledge.  I  hope, 
however,  that  as  a  summary  of  the  attempts  that  have 
been  made  in  various  ages  to  place  human  institutions 
under  the  sanction  of  absolute  authority,  the  lectures  may 
not  be  without  interest. 

The  Romanes  and  Rede  Lectures  were  given  in  1920 
and  1922  respectively.  These  two  annual  lectureships 
have  been  held  by  such  a  series  of  distinguished  men  that 
it  is  a  great  honour  to  be  asked  to  deliver  them,  and  I 
valued  the  compliment  from  my  two  universities  very 
highly.  Both  lectures  have  been  published  and  widely 
read  ;  but  some  who  already  know  them  may  be  glad  to 
have  them  in  book  form. 

The  next  two  essays,  which  I  am  allowed  to  reprint 
by  the  courtesy  of  the  Quarterly  and  the  Edinburgh  Review 
respectively,  deal  with  closely  connected  subjects.  The 
unending  rivalry  between  Europe  and  Asia — a  rivalry  not 
only  of  peoples  but  of  ideas  and  types  of  civilisation — has 
not  been  definitely  settled  in  favour  of  the  West.  Under 
new  forms,  Abiatic  competition  may  be  a  very  serious 
matter  for  industrialised  Europe,  and  it  no  longer  seems 
likely  that  the  whole  world  will  pass  under  the  political 
tutelage  of  the  white  peoples.  The  other  essay.  The 
Dilemma  of  Civilisation,  raises  the  great  question  whether 
the  over-mechanisation  of  life  has  not  impaired  the 
intrinsic  qualities  of  the  human  race,  so  that  what  we 
usually  call  progress  may  have  to  be  paid  for  by  racial 
retrogression. 

It  is  possible  that  here  and  there  these  two  essays  may 
bear  marks  of  the  very  anxious  years  in  which  they  were 
written.  It  then  seemed  uncertain  whether  civilisation 
would  survive  the  terrible  strain  which  the  Great  War 
had  put  upon  it.  Our  social  order  has  many  enemies, 
who  have  not  yet  abandoned  the  hope  of  wrecking  it. 
But  it  seems  to  me  to  have  more  strength  than  either 


PREFACE  Til 

its  friends  or  its  enemies  gave  it  credit  for ;  and  Western 
Europe  at  least  shows  signs  of  convalescence.  The 
competition  of  the  Far  East  is  perhaps  a  question  for 
the  next  generation  more  than  for  our  own,  though  we 
must  be  prepared  to  deal  with  it ;  and  The  Dilemma  of 
Civilisation  is  a  problem  for  the  Earth-Spirit,  whom 
George  Meredith,  in  rather  cryptic  lines,  represents  as 
contemplating  '  her  great  venture,  Man.' 

Meanwhile  on  him,  her  chief 
Expression,  her  great  word  of  life,  looks  she  ; 
Twi-minded  of  him,  as  the  waxing  tree 
Or  dated  leaf. 

'  Earth,'  the  poet  thinks,  is  not  yet  certain  that  her 
great  venture  has  been  a  success.  But  humanity  is  still 
young. 

The  last  essay,  on  Eugenics,  urges  the  necessity  of 
counteracting,  by  rational  selection,  the  racial  deteriora- 
tion which  must  overtake  any  nation  in  which  natural 
selection  is  no  longer  operative.  It  has  appeared  in  the 
Edinburgh  Review  for  July  1922. 

W.  E.  INGE. 
ST.  PAUL'S, 
August  1922. 


CONTENTS 

PAOB 

I.      '  CONFESSIO   FlDEl  ' 1 

II.    THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE  : 

(i)  THEOCRACIES 60 

(ii)  THE  GREEK  CITY  STATE        ....  78 

(iii)  THE  MEDIEVAL  IDEAL  .....  99 
(iv)  THE  MODERN  GOD-STATE      .         .         .         .120 

(v)  RELIGION  AND  THE  STATE     ....  139 

III.  THE  IDEA  OF  PROGRESS 158 

IV.  THE  VICTORIAN  AGE 184 

V.    THE  WHITE  MAN  AND  HIS  RIVALS       .         .         .  209 

VI.    THE  DILEMMA  OF  CIVILISATION    ....  231 

VII.    EUGENICS  254 


OUTSPOKEN    ESSAYS 


'CONFESSIO  FIDEI' 

THE  object  of  studying  philosophy  is  to  know  one's  own 
mind,  not  other  people's.  Philosophy  means  thinking 
things  out  for  oneself.  Ultimately,  there  can  be  only  one 
true  philosophy,  since  reason  is  one  and  we  all  live  in  the 
same  world.  But  we  are  all  limited,  both  in  intellectual 
capacity,  and  in  the  experience  upon  which  our  beliefs 
are  built.  We  can  only  try  to  co-ordinate  and  reconcile 
the  knowledge  which  has  come  to  us  from  many  quarters, 
resolving  contradictions  and  separating  genuine  convic- 
tions from  spectral  half-beliefs,  conventional  acceptances, 
and  the  mere  will  to  believe.  We  cannot  make  a  religion 
for  others,  and  we  ought  not  to  let  others  make  a  religion 
for  us.  Our  own  religion  is  what  life  has  taught  us.  If 
we  can  clarify  this  body  of  experience,  which  comes  to  us 
so  turbid  and  impure,  we  shall  have  done  what  is  best 
worth  doing  for  ourselves,  and  we  shall  have  to  offer  to 
others  the  best  that  was  in  us  to  give,  however  small  its 
value  may  be. 

I  begin  this  essay  on  the  terrace  in  front  of  an  hotel  at 
Miirren.  A  lonely  holiday,  almost  without  books,  among 
the  grandest  scenes  of  nature,  is  a  favourable  opportunity 
for  setting  one's  ideas  in  order.  Solitude  and  freedom 
from  interruptions  give  a  chance  of  continuous  thinking. 
The  absence  of  books  compels  thought  to  take  the  form  of 
self-examination.  A  Swiss  alp,  five  thousand  feet  above 
the  sea,  and  in  full  view  of  a  majestic  range  of  snow 

n.  1  B 


2  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

peaks  and  glaciers,  opens  avenues  of  communication  with 
the  magnolia  Dei  which  are  less  easy  to  maintain  amid 
the  dark  and  grimy  surroundings  of  my  London  home. 
And  so  I  will  employ  myself  here  in  trying  to  formulate 
my  articles  of  belief,  primarily  for  my  own  sake,  but  also 
in  the  hope  that  what  I  write  may  fall  into  the  hands  of 
some  like-minded  or  sympathetic  readers. 

God  is  the  beginning  of  religion  and  the  end  of  philo- 
sophy, and  the  beginning  and  the  end  are  one.  Alike  in 
religion  and  philosophy  the  important  question  is  not 
whether  God  exists,  but  what  we  mean  when  we  speak  of 
God.  We  all,  I  suppose,  tend  to  make  a  God  in  our  own 
likeness,  or  in  the  likeness  of  such  an  one  as  we  should  be 
if  we  could  be  what  we  would.  Our  dominant  interests 
warp  our  conceptions  of  the  Deity.  The  philosopher 
contemplates  an  eternal  thinker  ;  the  moralist  a  magnified 
schoolmaster  or  judge  ;  the  priest  reveres  the  head  of  the 
clerical  profession  ;  the  scientist  personifies  the  vital  law 
of  the  phenomenal  universe ;  the  patriot  invokes  the 
protector  and  champion  of  his  nation.  The  average  man, 
hemmed  in  by  pitiless  circumstance,  appeals  to  a  kindly 
governor  of  the  world,  who  will  forgive  the  mistakes  to 
which  nature  is  so  relentless,  and  give  compensation  for 
all  unmerited  suffering.  The  many  who  have  failed  to 
bring  their  own  lives  under  any  ruling  principle,  see  no 
moral  or  rational  principle  in  their  environment.  Their 
universe  is  godless,  as  their  own  lives  are  anarchical. 
*  Such  as  men  themselves  are,  such  will  God  appear  to  them 
to  be.' 

The  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  taken 
up  with  a  long  '  conflict  between  religion  and  science,' 
as  it  was  usually  called ;  more  accurately,  it  was  a  con- 
flict between  naturalism  and  supernaturalism.  The  great 
German  idealists  had  passed  under  a  cloud;  interest  was 
concentrated  on  the  unparalleled  progress  of  the  natural 
sciences,  which  seemed  for  a  time  to  have  solved  '  the 
Riddle  of  the  Universe.'  Natural  science  depended  on 
one  dogma,  which  was  often  wrongly  called  the  law  of 
causality,  but  was  really  the  law  of  unbroken  continuity. 
It  was  therefore  obliged  to  wage  war  on  the  theory  of 


'CONFESSIO  FIDEI'  3 

supernatural  interventions,  with  which  traditional  religion 
was  bound  up.  If  the  Creator  was  in  the  habit  of  sus- 
pending His  own  laws,  no  science  of  nature  was  possible. 
If,  for  example,  an  outbreak  of  cholera  might  be  caused 
either  by  an  infected  water-supply  or  by  the  blasphemies 
of  an  infidel  mayor,  medical  research  would  be  in  con- 
fusion, But  we  can  now  see  how  much  bad  philosophy 
was  mixed  up  with  this  just  claim  of  science  to  be  undis- 
turbed in  its  own  field.  Kant  had  done  a  poor  service  to 
idealism  by  his  separation  between  the  theoretical  and  the 
practical  reason.  He  conceded  objective  certitude  only 
to  the  truths  of  science,  basing  our  moral  and  religious 
beliefs  on  subjective  faith.  Religion  under  these  conditions 
was  condemned  to  fight  a  losing  battle.  Our  spiritual 
life  was  banished  from  the  sphere  of  objective  reality ; 
and  we  find  natural  philosophers  like  Herbert  Spencer 
suggesting  a  delimitation  of  territory,  by  which  the  know- 
able  should  be  assigned  to  themselves,  the  unknowable  to 
religion.  It*  was  only  a  step  further  when  Leslie  Stephen 
called  the  two  spheres  realities  and  dreams.  The  nine- 
teenth-century scientists  did  not  mean  to  be  materialists, 
and  most  of  them  repudiated  the  name  ;  but  all  their 
effective  thinking  was  done  in  terms  of  mechanical  physics, 
and  mind  or  consciousness  was  relegated  to  the  position 
of  a  passive  spectator  among  machinery  which  worked 
independently  of  it. 

The  idealists  were  too  ready  to  accept  this  demarca- 
tion. Some  of  them  fell  back  upon  the  irrationalism  of 
Pascal — '  the  heart  has  its  reasons  which  the  intellect 
knows  not  of  ' ;  or  like  Tennyson,  made  the  heart  stand  up 
like  a  man  in  wrath  against  the  freezing  reason's  colder 
part.  Others,  down  to  our  own  day,  make  religion  a 
homage  to  ideals  which  are  not  facts,  and  virtually  assign 
the  spiritual  life  to  the  province  of  the  aesthetic  imagination. 
The  assumption  is  that  science  gives  us  facts  without 
values,  and  religion  values  without  facts.  Science  tells 
us  what  is  true  ;  philosophy  and  religion  spread  over  the 
cheerless  scene  the  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land. 

This  intolerable  dualism  was  most  ineffectively  bridged 
by  the  superstition  of  automatic  progress,  an  unscientific 


4  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

dream-picture  in  which  nevertheless  science  and  religion 
could  meet  on  common  ground.  Ideals  could  recover 
some  actuality  by  being  regarded  as  future  facts.  The 
world  is  an  unsatisfactory  place  now,  but  it  is  on  its  way 
to  perfection.  Man  as  we  know  him  is  a  poor  creature  ; 
but  he  is  half-way  between  an  ape  and  a  god,  and  he 
is  travelling  in  the  right  direction.  Finis  coronal  opus. 
God  at  present  (according  to  these  apologists)  seems  to 
make  a  poor  job  of  governing  the  world  ;  we  can  only  say 
of  Him,  with  Dr.  McTaggart,  that  He  is  '  on  the  whole 
good  rather  than  bad ' — -a  restricted  testimonial  which 
would  hardly  procure  an  engagement  for  a  housemaid 
except  under  post-war  conditions  ;  but  He  is  gradually 
improving,  and  we  must  give  Him  time  to  '  realise  himself.' 

This  expedient  is  neither  scientific  nor  Christian.  There 
is  not,  and  cannot  be,  any  progress  in  the  universe  as  a 
whole,  and  there  is  no  probability  that  the  human  race 
will  either  reach  perfection  or  find  the  laws  of  nature  much 
more  conformable  to  its  desires  than  they  are  now.  Any 
philosophy  which  postulates  either  any  kind  of  progress 
in  the  universe  as  a  whole,  or  unending  progress  in  any 
part  of  it,  is  demonstrably  moonshine  and  not  worth  dis- 
cussing. The  whole  cannot  change  ;  and  all  growth  has 
its  natural  limit.  A  planet  has  a  history  ;  the  macrocosm 
has  none.  Our  species  has  probably  half  a  million  years 
in  which  to  try  every  possible  and  impossible  experiment 
in  social  and  economic  reform.  That  ought  to  satisfy  our 
millenarians.  But  as  when  we  look  at  a  grave  we  say 
'  Beneath  that  mound  lies  what  I,  as  a  creature  of  time, 
shall  be  in  a  few  years,'  so  when  we  look  at  the  moon  we 
may  say  with  tolerable  assurance,  '  That  is  what  our 
home  will  look  like  at  no  incalculably  distant  date.' 

To  throw  our  ideals  into  the  future  is  the  death  of  all 
sane  philosophy  and  science.  As  I  write  these  lines  I  have 
before  me  a  row  of  mountain  summits  of  incomparable 
glory  and  majesty,  but  entirely  remote  from  all  human 
interests.  They  were  in  existence  before  even  our  sub- 
human ancestors  hunted  the  mammoth  and  disputed 
their  caverns  with  the  cave-bear.  They  will  stand  where 
they  now  are  when  the  next  ice-age  has  depopulated  this 


'CONFESSIO  FIDEP  5 

part  of  Europe  and  perhaps  brought  about  the  extinction 
of  what  are  now  the  most  advanced  races  of  mankind. 
And  yet  the  mountains  themselves  are  not  everlasting. 

The  hills  are  shadows,  and  they  flow 

From  form  to  form,  and  nothing  stands  ; 
They  melt  like  mist,  the  solid  lands, 

Like  clouds  they  shape  themselves  and  go. 

The  period  of  organic  evolution  is  but  a  moment  when 
compared  with  the  tremendous  duration  of  inorganic  evolu- 
tion. Ten  thousand  million  years  may  have  been  required 
to  reduce  a  star  from  the  temperature  of  Alnilam  to  that 
of  Arcturus  or  our  sun.  A  thousand  million  years  may 
elapse  before  the  extinction  of  the  light  and  heat  which 
pour  from  our  elderly  luminary,  and  which  make  life  and 
consciousness  possible,  for  a  little  while,  on  one  or  two 
of  the  planets  which  revolve  round  it.  And  then  who  can 
measure  the  'duration  of  the  sleep  of  dead  worlds,  in  cold 
and  darkness,  till  a  new  cycle  begins  for  them  ? 

The  home  of  religion,  we  are  told,  is  the  ideal.  But 
ideals  which  have  no  counterpart  in  reality,  and  are 
created  either  by  the  rebel  will,  which  however  angrily  it 
may  declaim  against  freezing  reason  cannot  make  things 
other  than  they  are,  or  by  the  poetic  fancy  which  can 
only  weave  a  world  of  dreams  into  which  we  may  flee 
from  the  facts  of  life — such  ideals  are  frivolous  and  can 
bring  us  no  deep  or  lasting  satisfaction.  Nor  have  we 
the  power  to  levy  unlimited  drafts  upon  the  future.  War- 
finance  has  no  place  in  philosophy.  Instead  of  running  up 
loans  which  the  future  will  not  honour,  we  must  direct  our 
critical  attention  to  the  primary  assumption  of  naturalism, 
that  the  phenomenal  world,  or  what  naturalism  mistakes 
for  such,  is  objectively  real,  and  our  valuations,  whether 
moral  or  aesthetic,  of  no  more  than  subjective  validity. 

As  long  as  the  attempt  to  interpret  the  world  by 
purely  mechanical  and  quantitative  categories  remained 
unchallenged,  naturalism  had  the  appearance  of  a  coherent 
principle  of  explanation  under  which  everything  might  in 
time  be  brought.  Man,  with  his  consciousness,  reason, 
and  lofty  claims,  was  described  as  only  the  most  cunningly 


6  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

devised  of  nature's  clocks.    Complete  knowledge  of  the 
laws  of  invariable  sequence  would,  it  was  assumed,  reveal 
him  as  an  automaton.    It  is  no  wonder  that  this  philo- 
sophy— for  it  was  a  metaphysical,  not  a  scientific  theory — 
aroused  indignant  protests,  even  before  its  inherent  weak- 
ness was  fully  exposed.    Its  weakness,  however,  was  not 
far  below  the  surface.    It  was  easy  to  prove  that  the 
synthesis  of  naturalism  could  not  survive  any  thorough 
investigation  of  the  conditions  of  knowledge.    Not  only 
was  the  knower  reduced  by  it  to  an  otiose  and  inexplicable 
spectator  of  a  scene  in  which  he  is  obviously  an  actor ; 
not  only  does  epiphenomenalism  (as   Plotinus  said  long 
ago)  '  make  soul  an  affection,  or  disease,  of  matter ' ;  but 
the  scientific  view  of  the  world  itself  is  by  no  means  re- 
ducible to  mathematical  formulas.     It  is  an  intellectual 
construction  based  on  an  abstract  view  of  reality,  convenient 
for  the  prosecution  of  those  studies  with  which  natural 
science  is  concerned.     It  is  already  charged  with  value- 
judgments,  which  are  the  more  confusing  because  they 
are  not  recognised  as  such.     It  is  in  serious  difficulties 
about  what  are  called  the  primary  and  secondary  qualities 
— an  old  problem  which  has  perhaps  exercised  the  minds 
of  thinkers  too  long.     The  primary  qualities,  it  has  often 
been  held,  are  objectively  real ;  the  secondary,  such  as 
colour  and  sound,  are  subjective  effects  due  to  our  senses. 
This  practically  means  that  we  are  to  look  for  truth  not 
in  the  drama  of  reality  as  it  unfolds  itself  to  our  minds, 
but  in  the  stage  mechanism  by  which  it  is  exhibited.     The 
naturalist  seldom   thinks   of  what  the   world  would   be 
without  its  secondary  qualities — universal  darkness  and 
silence,  not  a  world  at  all.     No  wonder  that  Fechner  called 
this  the  '  night-view '  of  the  universe.    To  separate  the 
two  orders  of  qualities  seems  to  be  impossible ;    if  the 
secondary  qualities  are  condemned  as  unreal,  the  primary 
must  go  too.     If  the  secondary,  which  demonstrably  de- 
pend on  the  body  and  mind  of  the  perceiver  for  their  char- 
acters as  known,  are  allowed  to  belong  to  reality,  the  place 
of  mind,  as  an  integral  and  integrating  factor  in  reality, 
is  conceded.     It  might  even  have  been  better,  as  I  think 
Professor  Laurie  suggested,  to  drop  the  words  primary  and 


'CONFESSIO  FIDEI'  7 

secondary,  and  substitute  quantitative  and  qualitative. 
It  would  then  be  clear  how  impossible  it  is  to  interpret 
any  concrete  object  without  the  help  of  qualitative  cate- 
gories. Sound  and  colour  have  their  physical  i  dices  in 
vibrations ;  but  these  would  never  have  been  discovered 
but  for  the  qualitative  values  which  sounds  and  colours 
have  for  us. 

But  the  citadel  of  naturalism  was  really  betrayed  from 
within.  Biologists  were  at  first  willing  to  accept  the  first 
dogma  of  scientific  orthodoxy,  that  the  world  of  science 
is  ultimately  the  sphere  of  applied  mathematics,  so  that 
all  biological  processes  must  be  reducible  to  mechanical 
and  chemical  terms — the  dynamics  of  particles.  But  this 
hypothesis  was  so  cramping  and  so  contrary  to  what 
seemed  to  be  the  laws  of  life  as  they  present  themselves 
to  observation,  that  a  revolt  took  place  against  the  prin- 
ciple of  explaining  the  organic  by  the  inorganic.  '  Why 
seek  ye  the  living  among  the  dead  ?  '  was  a  question  asked 
more  insistently  every  year.  Thus  a  rift  was  introduced 
between  biology  and  physics,  and  the  unity  of  the  scientific 
view  of  the  world  was  broken  up.  Whether  the  new 
vitalism  which  has  been  encouraged  by  this  declaration 
of  independence  on  the  part  of  biology  and  psychology  has 
escaped  the  fallacies  of  the  old  vitalism  may  be  doubted. 
An  autonomous  life-principle,  whether  called  by  old  names 
or  by  new,  is  a  danger  to  the  reign  of  continuity.  It 
may  be  used  to  hand  over  the  world  once  more  to  super- 
naturalistic  dualism,  or  to  miracle-working  will.  It  has 
been  acclaimed  as  liberating  us  from  the  chains  of 
determinism,  and  opening  the  gates  of  the  future  which 
nineteenth-century  science  had  shut  and  locked.  So  far 
has  this  supposed  emancipation  taken  us  that  some  Ameri- 
can thinkers  are  ready  to  accept  an  anarchic  universe  of 
free  and  independent  spirits,  among  whom  the  Deity  has 
less  power  than  the  President  of  the  United  States,  or 
even  to  rehabilitate  pure  chance.  The  gains  of  nineteenth- 
century  science  are  in  danger  from  such  doctrines,  and 
theism  has  nothing  to  hope  from  them.  The  dualism  which 
naturalism  had  hoped  to  remove  reappears  in  the  war 
between  man  and  the  cosmic  process,  which  Huxley,  hardly 


8  OUTSPOKEN -ESSAYS 

knowing  what  he  did,  proclaimed  in  his  famous  Romanes 
Lecture.  It  is  a  new  Zoroastrianism  or  Manicheism,  in 
which  even  men  of  science  are,  surprisingly,  found  ready 
to  identify  the  God  of  nature  with  Ahriman,  and  to  invite 
us  to  enlist  on  the  right  side  in  a  cosmic  duel.  Or  if  the 
good  cause  is  merely  a  subjective  ideal,  as  seems  to  follow 
from  the  presuppositions  of  these  writers,  we  are  in  the 
painful  position  of  being  ordered  to  love  a  good  God  who 
does  not  exist,  and  to  resist  a  Power  which  exists  but  is 
not  good. 

The  doctrine  that  men  are  automata  was  always 
absurd,  and  Professor  J.  A.  Thomson  has  stated  the  case 
against  it  in  unanswerable  language.  '  A  self-stoking, 
self-repairing,  self- preservative,  self-adjusting,  self-in- 
creasing, self-reproducing  machine  is  only  by  an  abuse  of 
language  called  a  machine  at  all.'  Such  a  machine  would 
certainly  make  the  fortune  of  its  inventor  ;  and  we  must 
remember  that  our  machine-makers  try  to  do  some  of 
these  things.  A  machine  is  after  all  the  creation  of  a 
purposeful  mind.  There  is  no  contradiction  between 
mechanism  and  purpose — an  obvious  truth  which  has  been 
too  often  forgotten  in  the  controversy  between  naturalists 
and  theists.  Mechanism  is  the  teleology  of  the  inorganic 
world.  It  is,  we  may  believe  with  confidence,  the  work 
of  an  intelligent  designer,  which,  as  we  might  expect, 
displays  the  regularity  of  any  machine  which  is  doing 
its  work.  With  the  brief  episode  of  organic  evolution  we 
come  to  other  methods,  which  depend  on  the  presence 
of  consciousness  and  reason.  But  there  is  no  sharp  line 
of  demarcation  between  the  two.  The  development  of 
life  out  of  the  inorganic  is  a  fact,  though  it  has  not  yet 
been  produced  experimentally.  For  even  if  the  rather 
fantastic  theory  were  established,  that  the  spores  of  life 
travel  through  space  from  distant  orbs,  the  difficulty 
would  then  only  be  thrown  one  stage  back  ;  somewhere 
or  other  life  must  have  been  produced  from  the  lifeless. 

No  theory  which  separates  man  from  the  world  of 
which  he  is  an  organic  factor  ought  to  satisfy  us.  The 
universe  is  '  all  of  a  piece  ' ;  it  was  not  made  for  us  ;  nor 
are  we  '  the  roof  and  crown  of  things  ' — at  least  it  may 


'CONFESSIO  FIDEI'  9 

be  hoped  that  we  are  not.  But  the  highest  to  which 
human  nature  can  attain — all  the  intellectual,  moral  and 
spiritual  endowments  of  the  greatest  human  beings — are 
just  as  much  part  of  nature  as  the  primordial  element 
or  elements  out  of  which  the  visible  universe  is  woven. 
Nor  can  we  explain  the  higher  by  the  lower.  The  attempt 
to  do  so  was  the  blunder  of  science  in  the  last  century. 
Wherever  values  are  in  question,  by  their  fruits,  and  not 
by  their  roots,  we  shall  know  them.  Evolutionists  have 
often  assumed  that  evolution  means  the  mechanical  un- 
packing of  what  was  potentially  there  all  the  time,  just 
as  traditionalists  regard  progressive  revelation  as  the 
better  understanding  of  a  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints. 
The  word  '  potentially  '  is  a  dangerous  one  in  philosophy. 
It  has  often  been  used  to  disguise  or  evade  the  problem 
of  change,  which  is  not  an  easy  one.  The  dogma  of  con- 
tinuity, which  seemed  to  forbid  the  addition  of  any  new 
factor  by  way  of  creation,  made  it  necessary,  in  the  teeth 
of  evidence,  te  assert  that  the  final  result  of  any  develop- 
ment was  implicit  in  its  beginnings.  If  our  ancestors 
were  apes,  then  we  are  cultivated  apes,  or  the  apes  are 
arrested  men.  As  this  was  too  absurd,  science  fell  back 
on  the  admission  of  real  change,  but  insisted  that  the 
changes  are  slight  and  very  slow.  It  seems  to  have  been 
generally  forgotten  that  a  small  change  is  as  difficult  to 
account  for  as  a  great  change  ;  the  problem  is  how  to 
explain  change  at  all.  There  is  a  story  of  a  girl  who 
apologised  for  a  baby  whose  existence  needed  apology 
on  the  ground  that  it  was  a  very  small  one.  The  minute 
modifications  imagined  by  the  early  Darwinians  are  equally 
futile  as  an  explanation  of  how  there  came  to  be  any 
modifications  ;  the  '  mutations  '  which  have  now  been 
observed  do  not  add  to  the  philosophical  difficulty.  There 
has  been  a  tendency  to  revert  to  Lamarck's  theory  that 
the  changes  of  species  are  caused  by  the  will  of  the  indi- 
viduals composing  them,  a  will  excited  by  the  environment, 
which  makes  modifications  of  structure  necessary  in  order 
to  preserve  life  under  changing  conditions.  This  is  to 
admit  what  Bergson  calls  creative  evolution,  through  the 
agency  of  the  unconscious  striving  of  living  beings.  Some- 


10  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

thing  actually  new,  and  not  implicit  in  the  racial  origins, 
is  brought  into  being.  It  may  well  be  supposed  that 
consciousness  itself  was  evoked  in  this  way  in  response  to 
vital  needs. 

The  question  seems  to  me  extraordinarily  difficult. 
For  when  we  postulate  the  advent  of  some  new  factor  to 
account  for  change  in  organisms,  we  must  not  forget  the 
inexplicable  results  of  chemical  combinations.  We  do  not 
suppose  that  anything  like  a  new  creative  act  is  responsible 
for  the  appearance  of  water  when  oxygen  and  hydrogen 
combine,  and  yet  this  is  a  more  startling  change  than 
organic  evolution  has  to  show.  But  I  think  it  would  not 
be  rash  to  say  that  the  laws,  that  is  to  say  the  observed 
behaviour,  of  inorganic  matter  do  not  suffice  when  we 
wish  to  predict  the  behaviour  of  living  things.1  And  in 
the  same  way,  biological  and  psychological  laws  may  not 
suffice  to  explain  the  processes  of  spiritual  life.  Without 
in  any  way  wishing  to  restore  the  old  dualism  of  natural 
and  supernatural,  we  may  be  justified  in  repudiating  that 
kind  of  determinism  which  rests  on  the  analogy  of  in- 
variable sequence  in  inorganic  nature. 

I  have  said  that  what  we  call  mechanism  is  so  far  from 
ruling  out  the  hypothesis  of  a  directing  mind,  that  it 
strongly  supports  that  hypothesis.  But  is  the  directing 
mind  which  orders  all  the  events  of  the  universe  merely 
immanent  ?  Modern  philosophy  for  the  most  part  asserts 
that  it  is.  Our  idealists  are  most  of  them  either  frank 
pantheists,  or  advocates  of  the  watered-down  pantheism 
which  is  the  creed  of  the  English  Neo-Hegelians.  For 
this  school,  God  is  exhausted  in  his  universe  ;  His  life  is 
realised  only  in  the  cosmic  process.  They  consider  that 
not  only  is  man  organic  to  the  world,  but  that  the  world, 
including  especially  man,  is  organic  to  God.  '  The  exist- 
ence of  finite  selves,'  we  are  told  by  Professor  Pringle- 
Pattison,  '  constitutes  the  essence  of  the  absolute  life.' 
'  If  God  is  not  active  in  the  process,  He  is  no  more  than 
an  eternal  dreamer.'  '  The  eternal  and  the  temporal  are 

1  It  might  be  better  to  avoid  the  question- begging  words  '  living ' 
and  'inanimate,'  for  probably  everything  is  'Jiving'  in  different 
degrees;  but  it  is  convenient  to  use  'living  '  for  organisms. 


'CONFESSIO  FIDEI'  11 

correlatives,'  he  says.  The  world  is  therefore,  according 
to  this  theory,  as  necessary  to  God  as  God  is  to  the  world. 
As  Coleridge  says,  speaking  of  Spinoza,  whereas  for  the 
Christian  the  world  minus  God  =  0,  but  God  minus  the 
world  =  God,  for  Spinoza  God  minus  the  world  =  0 

This  doctrine  of  pure  immanence  leads  logically  to 
the  acceptance  of  the  world  as  we  find  it,  as  all  equally 
good  and  equally  divine.  Our  Hegelians  reject  this  con- 
clusion with  indignation,  and  seldom  fail  to  pillory  Pope's 
famous  line,  '  As  full,  as  perfect  in  a  hair  as  heart.'  They 
escape  from  it  partly  by  their  doctrine  of  degrees  of  truth 
and  reality,  on  which  I  shall  have  more  to  say  presently, 
and  partly  by  making  large  drafts  on  the  future,  which, 
as  I  have  said,  we  have  no  right  to  do.  A  God  who  is 
gradually  coming  into  His  own  is  not  yet  God,  and  there 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  such  a  Being  exists.  There 
neither  is  nor  can  be  any  progress  in  the  whole,  but  only, 
as  Empedocles  said,  an  alternate  combination  and  dis- 
sociation, which  we  call  Nature,  or  Growth.  An  infinite 
purpose  is  a  purpose  everlastingly  frustrate  ;  and  what 
single  purpose  could  be  accomplished  in  the  life  of  our 
planet  added  to  the  life  of  other  worlds  utterly  unknown 
to  us,  as  we  are  to  them  ?  I  do  not  see  how  this  philosophy 
can  survive  the  inevitable  downfall  of  the  shallow  optimism 
which  is  the  basis  of  secularism.  The  relations  of  the 
ideal  to  the  actual,  of  what  ought  to  be  to  what  is,  cannot 
be  adjusted  by  the  maxim '  Wait  and  see.' 

There  is  no  escape  from  pantheism,  and  from  a  creed 
which,  if  not  pessimistic,  is  without  hope  for  the  future 
and  without  consolation  in  the  present,  unless  we  abandon 
the  doctrine  of  equivalence  between  God  and  the  world, 
and  return  to  the  theory  of  creation  by  a  God  who  is,  in 
His  own  being,  independent  of  the  world  and  above  it. 
This  was  the  doctrine  of  the  later  Platonists,  who  however 
did  not  represent  the  Deity  as  an  architect  or  manufacturer, 
but  used  the  metaphors,  confessedly  inadequate,  of  the 
effluence  of  rays  from  a  sun,  or  the  overflow  of  a  fountain. 
The  relation  between  the  Creator  and  the  world  is,  they 
insisted,  a  one-sided  relation  in  the  sense  above  indicated, 
namely,  that  while  the  world  owes  everything  to  God, 


12  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

God  owes  nothing  to  the  world.  The  creation  of  the  world 
was  an  appropriate  act  of  God  ;  it  was  even  a  necessary  act, 
since  the  attributes  of  God,  Goodness,  Truth,  and  Beauty, 
are  essentially  creative  energies  ;  they  cannot  be  idle.  It 
is  impossible  that  there  should  not  have  been  a  world, 
because  it  is  impossible  that  God  should  not  create,  after 
His  own  image,  any  good  thing  which  it  is  possible  for 
Him  to  create.  To  abstain  from  creating  would  argue 
either  a  defect  of  benevolence  or  something  like  indolence 
in  a  Being  to  whom  we  attribute  every  perfection.  But 
the  time-process,  even  when  gathered  up  in  all  its  complex 
meanings,  is  an  integral  part  of  His  experience,  not  an 
essential  part  of  His  existence.  The  words  of  the  dying 
Emily  Bronte  seem  to  me  to  contain  a  true  philosophy  : 

\ 

With  wide-embracing  love 
Thy  Spirit  animates  eternal  years, 
Pervades  and  broods  above, 
Changes,  sustains,  dissolves,  creates,  and  rears. 

Though  earth  and  man  were  gone, 
And  suns  and  universes  cease  to  be, 
And  Thou  wert  left  alone, 
Every  existence  would  exist  in  Thee. 

This  conception  of  the  relation  of  God  to  the  world  is 
also  that  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  has  been  defended 
by  a  long  series  of  Christian  philosophers,  who  do  not 
seem  to  me  inferior  in  acumen  and  penetration  to  the 
more  celebrated  modern  thinkers  from  Spinoza  to  our  own 
day.  I  have  often  wondered  why  the  hypothesis  of 
creation,  expounded  by  the  guardians  of  the  Catholic 
tradition,  has  received  such  slight  attention  from  our 
metaphysicians.  One  reason  apparently  is  that  while 
we  can  know,  at  least  in  part,  the  character  and  methods 
of  an  immanent  God,  and  cannot  doubt  His  existence 
without  denying  that  the  world  has  an  inner  meaning 
and  a  rational  explanation,  it  is  impossible  to  prove  the 
existence  of  the  transcendent  God  whom  Christians  worship, 
a  Being  who  must  remain  an  unverifiable  hypothesis. 
But  it  is  also  contended  by  modern  idealists  that  such 


'CONFESSIO  FIDEI'  13 

a  one-sided   relation  between  God  and   the  world  as   is 
asserted  by  Platonism  and  Christianity  is  impossible. 

The  latter  objection  may,  I  venture  to  think,  be  sum- 
marily dealt  with.  It  is  a  mere  begging  of  the  question. 
If  such  a  Being  as  the  Christian  God  exists,  there  is  no 
reason  why  He  should  not  create  a  world,  without  ex- 
hausting Himself  in  it.  We  are  not  guilty  of  the  contra- 
diction of  making  the  Absolute  create  something  which 
is  not  included  in  the  Absolute.  Without  God,  immanent 
in  His  Creation  and  willing  its  continuance,  the  universe 
would  not  exist ;  but  the  universe  is  not  a  complete 
expression  and  externalisation  of  His  nature,  being  on 
a  lower  plane  than  His  life,  and  an  imperfect  sharer  in 
His  eternity,  which  it  can  represent  only  under  the  in- 
adequate form  of  unending  duration.  If  we  have  already 
assumed  that  God  and  the  world  are  correlatives,  it  is 
easy  to  prove  that  they  must  be  reciprocally  involved 
in  each  other  ;  but  Christian  philosophy  does  not  regard 
them  as  correlatives.  As  for  the  objection,  drawn  from 
physics,  that  there  can  be  no  action  without  equivalent 
reaction,  it  does  not  touch  those  who  believe  that  ultimate 
reality  is  a  kingdom  of  values.  I  have  said  already  that 
the  laws  of  dynamics  cannot  be  applied  to  the  imponder- 
ables with  which  religious  thought  deals. 

The  question  whether  and  how  the  transcendent  God 
of  Christianity  can  be  known  to  us  is  a  very  difficult  one. 
Catholic  theology  has  steadily  maintained  that  the  existence 
of  God  can  be  proved  by  human  reason.  And  it  is  absurd 
to  suppose  that  we  can  know  of  God's  existence  without 
knowing  anything  else  about  Him.  We  cannot  know 
that  God  exists,  unless  we  have  some  predicates  which 
necessarily  appertain  to  the  name  '  God.'  According  to 
Catholic  philosophy,  we  can  prove  that  a  Being  possessing 
some  at  least  of  the  attributes  which  we  assign  to  God, 
exists,  and  we  can  attain  to  this  knowledge  through  our 
own  reason,  apart  from  revelation.  The  best  Catholic 
theologians,  however,  reject  what  they  call  '  ontologism,' 
the  doctrine  that  the  existence  of  God  is  a  necessary  and 
fundamental  truth  of  reason.  They  hold  that  our  know- 
ledge of  God  is  of  the  nature  of  a  valid  inference.  They 


14  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

are  not  willing  to  surrender  the  famous  four  proofs 
which  Kant  denounced  ;  they  can  all  be  restated  so  as 
to  have  great  value.  The  ontological  proof,  which  Kant 
handled  most  severely,  is  invalid  in  its  original  form, 
but  may  be  so  corrected  as  not  to  involve  the  error  of 
ontologism. 

There  is,  of  course,  another  line  of  proof,  open  to 
Platonists  and  Christians  alike — that  from  religious  ex- 
perience. Mysticism  rests  on  the  gallant  faith  of  Plato, 
that  '  the  completely  real  can  be  completely  known,'  and 
that  only  the  completely  real  can  be  compl  tely  known. 
Complete  knowledge  is  the  complete  unity  of  knower  and 
known,  for  we  can,  in  the  last  resort,  only  know  ourselves. 
The  process  of  divine  knowledge,  therefore,  consists  in 
calling  into  activity  a  faculty  which,  as  Plotinus  says,  all 
possess  but  few  use,  the  gift  which  the  Cambridge  Platonists 
called  the  seed  of  the  deiform  nature  in  the  human  soul. 
At  the  core  of  our  personality  is  a  spark  lighted  at  the 
altar  of  God  in  heaven — a  something  too  holy  ever  to 
consent  to  evil,  an  inner  light  which  can  illuminate  our 
whole  being.  To  purify  the  eyes  of  the  understanding  by 
constant  discipline,  to  detach  ourselves  from  hampering 
worldly  or  fleshly  desires,  to  accustom  ourselves  to  ascend 
in  heart  and  mind  to  the  kingdom  of  the  eternal  values 
which  are  the  thoughts  and  purposes  of  God — this  is  the 
quest  of  the  mystic  and  the  scheme  of  his  progress  through 
his  earthly  life.  It  carries  with  it  its  own  proof  and 
justification,  in  the  increasing  clearness  and  certainty 
with  which  the  truths  of  the  invisible  world  are  revealed 
to  him  who  diligently  seeks  for  them.  The  experience  is 
too  intimate,  and  in  a  sense  too  formless,  to  be  imparted 
to  others.  Language  was  not  made  to  express  it,  and 
the  imagination  which  recalls  the  hours  of  vision  after 
they  have  passed  paints  the  vision  in  colours  not  its  own. 
Remembered  revelation  always  tends  to  clothe  itself  in 
mythical  or  symbolic  form.  But  the  revelation  was  real ; 
and  it  is  here  and  here  only — in  the  mystical  act  par 
excellence,  the  act  of  prayer — that  faith  passes  for  a  time 
into  sight.  Formless  and  vague  and  fleeting  as  it  is, 
the  mystical  experience  is  the  bedrock  of  religious  faith. 


'CONFESSIO  FIDEI'  15 

In  it  the  soul,  acting  as  a  unity  with  all  its  faculties,  rises 
above  itself  and  becomes  spirit ;  it  asserts  its  claim  to 
be  a  citizen  of  heaven. 

I  am  very  far  from  claiming  that  I  have  had  these 
rich  experiences  myself.  It  is  only  occasionally  that  I 
can  '  pray  with  the  spirit  and  pray  with  the  understanding 
also,'  a  very  different  thing  from  merely  '  saying  one's 
prayers.'  Nor  have  I  found  in  the  contemplation  of 
nature  anything  like  the  inspiration  which  Wordsworth 
and  others  have  described.  At  times  '  the  moving  waters 
at  their  priest-like  task  '  seem  to  have  the  power  which 
Euripides  ascribes  to  them,  of  '  washing  away  all  human 
>lls  ' ;  at  times  the  mountains  speak  plainly  of  the  Ancient 
of  Days  who  was  before  they  began  to  be ;  but  too  often 
nature  only  echoes  back  my  own  moods,  and  seems  dark 
or  bright  because  I  am  sad  or  merry.  The  sweet  sanctities 
of  home  life,  and  especially  the  innocence  and  affection 
of  young  children,  more  often  bring  me  near  to  the  felt 
presence  of  God.  But  for  the  testimony  of  the  great  cloud 
of  witnesses,  who  have  mounted  higher  and  seen  more, 
I  should  not  have  ventured  to  build  so  much  on  this 
immediate  revelation  of  God  to  the  human  soul.  But 
the  evidence  of  the  saints  seems  to  me  absolutely  trust- 
worthy ;  and  the  dimness  of  my  own  vision  would  be 
disquieting  only  if  I  felt  that  I  had  deserved  better.  The 
pearl  of  great  price  is  not  so  easily  found.  But  do  we 
know  of  any  who  have  sought  after  the  knowledge  of 
God  as  diligently  as  other  men  seek  after  wealth  and 
honour,  and  have  come  away  empty-handed  ? 

Now,  the  God  revealed  to  us  in  prayer  and  meditation 
is  both  immanent  and  transcendent.  He  is  within  us  and 
yet  far  above  us.  Our  knowledge  of  Him  is  true  know- 
ledge, but  by  no  means  complete  knowledge.  There  is  a 
considerable  element  of  agnosticism  in  true  Christianity. 
If  even  the  pure  mystical  experience  is  reconstructed 
rather  than  reproduced  by  the  memory,  much  more  do 
our  schemes  of  value,  whether  scientific  or  metaphysical, 
take  symbolical  shapes  when  we  try  to  make  them 
principles  of  action  or  even  objects  of  contemplation. 
The  Godhead  as  He  is  in  Himself,  all  great  mystics  have 


16  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

agreed,  is  indescribable  and  unimaginable  ;  no  names  can 
be  given  Him  and  no  statements  made  about  Him.  Even 
the  Trinity,  some  have  thought,  must  proceed  from  a 
mysterious  Unity  '  beyond  existence.'  But  this  does  not 
mean  that  we  ought  to  abstain  from  attributing  any 
qualities  to  God.  To  do  this  would  be  to  impoverish 
our  religion,  not  to  bring  it  closer  to  the  truth.  The 
organ  by  which  we  know  God  is  our  whole  personality 
unified  under  the  primacy  of  the  highest  part  of  it.  God 
for  us  is  the  best  that  we  can  know.  The  spirit  of  man 
is  not  confined  by  time  and  place  ;  but  it  is  ensouled  spirit, 
the  spirit-in-soul  of  a  being  under  probation  in  a  world 
of  time  and  place.  Our  highest  intuitions  of  the  Divine, 
our  most  intimate  communications  with  God,  must  still 
be  relative  to  the  condition  in  which  we  are  ;  and  if, 
following  the  path  of  logic  and  analysis,  we  strip  off  those 
determinations  which  genuine  religious  experience  attaches 
to  the  idea  of  God,  we  shall  be  in  danger  of  defaecating  to 
a  transparency  what  ought  to  be  the  most  richly  concrete 
idea  in  our  consciousness.  St.  Paul,  in  that  inspired 
hymn  which  proclaims  Love  to  be  the  hierophant  of  the 
Divine  mysteries,  ends  by  emphasising  the  necessary 
limitations  of  our  knowledge.  '  Now  we  see  as  in  a  mirror, 
by  symbols,  but  then  face  to  face  ;  now  I  know  in  part, 
but  then  shall  I  know  even  as  I  am  known.'  The  apostle's 
'  now  '  and  '  then  '  are  themselves  symbolic,  being  derived 
from  the  lower  categories  of  experience,  like  the  '  here  ' 
and  '  there  '  of  the  Platonist.  The  author  of  the  '  Theo- 
logia  Germanica  '  comments  on  the  passage  as  follows  : 
'  He  says,  When  that  which  is  perfect  is  come,  then  that 
which  is  in  part  shall  be  done  away.  But  when  doth  it 
come  ?  I  say,  when  as  much  as  may  be  it  is  known, 
felt  and  tasted  by  the  soul.  The  lack  lieth  altogether  in 
us  and  not  in  it.  The  perfect  cannot  be  known  to  the 
creature  in  virtue  of  its  creature  nature  and  qualities, 
that  by  which  it  saith  "I"  and  "myself."  So  long 
as  we  think  much  of  these  things  and  cleave  to  them 
in  love,  joy,  pleasure  or  desire,  so  long  the  perfect 
remaineth  unknown  to  us.'  This  is  undoubtedly  the 
thought  of  St.  Paul.  Love  is  self-transcendence,  and 


'  CONFESSIO  FIDEI '  17 

yet  self-completion,  as  God  Himself  is  transcendent  and 
yet  immanent. 

What  then  is  the  relation  of  the  God  whom  we  thus 
know  truly  but  imperfectly  to  the  order  of  nature  ?  We 
must  remember  that  the  mirror  in  which  we  see  Him 
is  the  order  of  nature  as  known  to  us.  The  order  of 
nature  includes  the  highest  that  man  can  reach  ;  but  if 
the  philosopher  was  right  who  said  that  the  throne  of 
the  Godhead  is  the  human  spirit,  it  is  none  the  less  true 
that  the  whole  of  creation,  with  its  laws,  is  a  revelation 
of  God.  Some  recent  thinkers  have  depicted  nature  as  a 
'  blind  giant,'  in  whose  operations  we  can  find  neither 
wisdom  nor  goodness.  This  is  a  philosophy  of  dualism, 
in  which  the  enemy  of  God  is  the  Irrational  in  nature  ; 
God  and  man  are  allies  against  a  senseless  machine.  We 
are  sometimes  tempted  to  believe  this  ;  but  it  ought  not 
to  satisfy  us. 

I  reject  altogether  the  idea  of  interphenomenal  causa- 
tion. Events  cannot  be  causes  or  consequences  of  other 
events.  Kegularity  of  sequence  is  what  we  should  expect 
to  find,  though  to  our  imperfect  knowledge  there  are 
critical  points  in  evolution,  aftei  which  things  seem  to 
move  in  a  new  dimension.  But  to  attribute  efficient 
causation  to  matter  seems  impossible  ;  nor  has  matter  in 
itself  any  '  potentiality.'  And  to  suppose  that  causation 
begins  with  consciousness  is  to  introduce  an  impossible 
cleft  between  things  and  persons,  which  in  my  opinion  is 
one  of  the  worst  kinds  of  dualism.  For  not  only  can 
nobody  say  where  the  line  is  to  be  drawn  between  things 
and  persons,  but  wherever  we  choose  to  draw  it  the  results 
are  absurd.  The  reign  of  law  and  purpose  extends  over 
the  organic  and  the  inorganic  alike.  The  only  difference 
is  that  conscious  beings  are  able  in  various  degrees  to 
think  God's  thoughts  after  Him,  as  Kepler  said,  while 
Nature,  '  the  sleeping  spirit,'  obeys  without  knowing  what 
she  does. 

The  cause  of  events  is  the  will  of  God.     God  is  inde- 
pendent of  the  world-process,  which  nevertheless  He  knows 
as  a  process,  just  because  He  is  not  living  and  moving 
in  it.     It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  this,  because  we 
n.  o 


18  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

ourselves  are  conscious  of  time,  as  we  should  surely  not 
be  if  our  innermost  life  were  not  supra -temporal.  We  are 
not  conscious  of  movements  in  which  we  ourselves  and  all 
our  environment  are  involved. 

It  is  an  old  controversy,  whether  the  universe  had  a 
beginning  in  time.  The  majority  of  philosophers,  both  in 
antiquity  and  in  our  own  day,  have  denied  the  creation 
of  the  world  in  time,  while  Christian  theology  has  affirmed 
it.  Augustine,  indeed,  suggests  that  the  world  and  time 
were  made  together,  and  hopes  in  this  way  to  escape  the 
difficulty  of  an  empty  time  before  the  world  was.1  Natural 
philosophy,  until  recently,  has  supported  the  belief  that 
the  forces  of  association  and  dissociation  balance  each 
other,  so  that  the  life  of  the  universe  is  perpetual  and 
unchanging.  But  modern  science,  in  the  mouths  of  some 
of  its  most  distinguished  representatives,  has  been  unable 
to  avoid  the  conclusion,  based  on  the  second  law  of  thermo- 
dynamics, that  the  whole  universe  is  slowly  running  down 
like  a  clock.  I  have  referred  to  this  theory  in  another 
essay  in  this  book.  Its  supporters  have  not  always  drawn 
the  obvious  inference  that  if  the  universe  is  running  down 
in  time,  it  must  have  been  wound  up  in  time,  and  that 
whatever  unknown  power  wound  it  up  once  may  presum- 
ably be  able  to  wind  it  up  again.  But  even  if  the  argu- 
ments for  '  entropy  '  are  at  present  unanswerable,  it  seems 
much  more  likely  that  the  ancients  were  right  in  thinking 
that  the  forces  of  evolution  and  of  involution  balance 
each  other.  It  is  as  certain  that  some  stars  are  becoming 
hotter  as  that  others  are  becoming  colder.  It  is,  of  course, 
conceivable  that  what  we  call  the  universe  is  only  a  partial 
scheme,  which  has  a  beginning,  middle,  and  end.  There 
may  be  a  plurality  of  cosmic  processes,  both  in  space 
and  time.  But  the  analogy  of  the  universe  which  we 
know  supports  the  belief  that  what  we  see  is  a  part  of 
an  infinite  whole,  regulated  throughout  by  the  same  laws, 
which  have  never  not  been  in  operation,  and  which  will 
never  cease  to  act.  If  this  is  so,  the  world  is  perpetual,  as 

1  He  seems  to  be  right.  Empty  space  is  thinkable  ;  empty 
time  is  not.  If  nothing  were  happening,  time  would  not  be  empty  ; 
it  would  disappear. 


'  CONFESSIO  FIDEI '  19 

its  Creator  is  eternal.1  The  universe,  as  I  have  argued 
already,  is  not  essential  to  the  being  of  God,  but  is  a 
continuous  act  congruous  to  His  nature.  There  is  no 
single  purpose  being  realised  in  it,  for  the  time-series  has 
no  first  and  last  term,  between  which  a  single  all-embracing 
purpose  could  be  inaugurated  and  consummated.  But 
there  is  a  vast  number  of  limited  purposes,  which  have 
their  beginning  and  end  in  time.  The  achievement  of 
these  purposes  adds  nothing  to  the  being  or  the  well- 
being  of  the  Creator,  nor  does  their  failure  involve  Him 
in  any  loss.  They  are  His  thoughts,  transmuted  in  the 
time  series  into  purposes  or  acts  of  will,  and  their  validity 
may  be  illustrated  as  well  by  the  results  of  rebellion  as 
by  the  results  of  obedience.  In  their  entirety,  they  are 
the  complete  expression  of  the  Divine  mind,  so  far  as  it 
can  be  expressed  in  an  imperfect  medium. 
\  The  only  '  conscious  subject '  necessary  to  the  existence 
of  the  world  is  God.  If  no  other  conscious  subjects 
existed,  as  in  all  probability  they  do  not  exist  except  for 
a  short  time  in  a  few  spots  scattered  about  the  universe, 
the  world  would  be  exactly  what  it  is,  except  that  those 
globes  which  contain  conscious  beings  would  not  contain 
them.  The  notion  of  a  college  of  souls  who  are  constitu- 
tive of  reality  must  be  rejected.  Those  who  uphold  this 
theory  generally  end  by  finding  that  the  supposed  free 
and  independent  spirits,  for  whose  separate  individuality 
they  are  so  jealous,  are  sufficient  to  themselves  without 
a  God,  or  arrive  at  the  still  more  absurd  notion  that  God 
is  a  primus  inter  pares,  a  phrase  which  I  have  actually 
seen  used.  The  kind  of  realism  which  I  am  advocating 
is  a  very  different  thing  from  saying  that  the  world  as  we 
know  it  has  an  independent  objective  existence,  to  which 
we  in  the  act  of  knowing  it  contribute  nothing.  The 
world  as  we  know  it,  the  world  as  known  to  science,  is 

1  So  of  space.  Nicholas  of  Cusa  was,  I  think,  the  first  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  infinitum  of  God  and  the  interminatum  of 
the  world.  As  infinity  is  to  boundlessness,  so  is  eternity  to  per- 
petuity. It  is  well  known  that  Finitism  and  Infmitism  are  equally 
demonstrable  and  equally  refutable.  This  indicates,  I  think,  that 
in  space  and  time  we  are  not  dealing  with  the  fully  real, 


20  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

not  a  closed  system  of  independent  real  objects.  It  is 
demonstrably  a  mental  construction,  and  like  all  mental 
constructions  it  is  based  on  a  valuation  of  existence. 
Natural  science  deliberately  abstracts  from  a  whole  range 
of  higher  values,  embracing  all  the  imponderables  in  our 
experience.  It  is  only  by  a  confusion  that  it  attempts  to 
build  upon  mechanism  a  metaphysical  system  which 
regards  itself  as  a  negation  of  metaphysics.  The  world 
of  ordinary  experience  is  not  the  world  of  science,  but  a 
very  roughly  constructed  scheme  of  values,  selected  by 
the  practical  consciousness  as  bearing  on  our  own  psycho- 
physical  life  and  needs.  It  is  certainly  not  the  world  as 
known  to  the  Divine  omniscience.  The  world  in  which 
we  ordinarily  live  is  relative  to  soul-life ;  it  is  not  the 
world  of  spirit.  The  world  as  known  to  God  is  relative 
to  the  Divine,  not  to  human  consciousness ;  and  the 
relation  between  a  Divine  thought  and  the  Divine  thinker 
is  one  of  complete  correspondence.  The  controversy 
between  realism  and  idealism  is  thus  solved  in  the  Divine 
knowledge.  The  spiritual  world,  the  ultimately  real 
world,  is  the  objectified  thought  of  Him  who  '  spake  and 
it  was  done.'  It  is  not  '  only  mental ' ;  the  thought  is 
not  prior  to  the  thing,  nor  the  thing  to  the  thought.  The 
thought  and  its  object  reciprocally  imply  each  other. 

The  world  of  time  and  space  touches  reality  most 
closely  where  the  eternal  thoughts  of  God  can  be  discerned 
creating  after  their  own  likeness,  and  working  towards 
the  fulfilment  of  some  purpose.  And  what,  so  far  as  we 
can  see,  are  the  chief  among  these  purposes  ?  Some  of 
our  idealists  have  been  attracted  by  a  phrase  borrowed 
from  a  letter  of  Keats,  that  the  world  is  '  the  vale  of  soul- 
making.'  In  a  sense  I  should  agree  ;  but  not  if  '  souls  ' 
mean  only  human  souls.  For  this  way  of  estimating  the 
value  of  the  world  is  far  too  anthropocentric.  Our  personal 
idealists  need  to  be  reminded  of  Aristotle's  words  that 
there  are  many  things  in  the  world  more  divine  than  man. 
Anthropolatry  is  the  enemy  ;  it  has  vitiated  much  modern 
philosophy.  True  philosophy  is  theocentric.  The  world 
is  a  hymn  sung  by  the  creative  Logos  to  the  glory  of  God 
the  Father.  Its  objects,  so  far  as  we  can  discern,  are  the 


'  CONFESSIO  FIDEI '  21 

manifestation  of  the  nature  of  God  under  His  three 
attributes  of  Wisdom,  Beauty  and  Goodness.  We  call 
these  three  attributes  of  God  the  Absolute  Values.  They 
are  absolute  because  they  exist  in  their  own  right  and 
cannot  be  made  means  to  anything  else,  not  even  to  each 
other,  and  because  they  are  eternal  and  unchangeable. 
We  call  them  values  because  they  are  the  subjects  of 
qualitative  judgments  ;  they  cannot  be  measured  or  given 
quantitative  equivalents.  They  are,  we  say,  spiritual 
goods,  in  which  we  may  participate  in  proportion  to  our 
own  spiritual  growth.  We  do  not  make  them ;  they  are 
above  us.  It  is  rather  they  that  make  us  immortal  and 
blessed  if  we  can  lay  hold  of  them  and  live  in  them. 

It  is  important  to  assert,  against  naturalism  and  some 
forms  of  realism,  that  these  values  are  not  merely  ideals. 
Ideals  have  been  said  to  be  ideas  in  process  of  realisation. 
But  when  we  speak  of  an  ideal  we  mean  something  which 
ought  to  be~  but  is  not,  or  something  which  will  be  but 
is  not  yet.  Those  who  regard  God  and  the  realisation  of 
God's  will  as  ideals  are  either  projecting  His  reign  into 
the  future,  a  method  to  which  we  have  already  taken 
objection,  or  they  virtually  assign  all  the  highest  hopes 
of  humanity  to  the  sphere  of  the  imagination.  Religion, 
for  some  of  our  prophets,  is  a  kind  of  poetry  which  em- 
broiders, dignifies  and  beautifies  life  by  painting  it  in 
fanciful  colours.  It  is  possible  to  admit  the  important 
work  done  by  the  imagination  in  philosophy,  religion, 
and  the  higher  life  generally,  without  giving  ourselves 
free  scope  to  invent  fairy-tales  and  beguile  ourselves  with 
them.  Wordsworth  calls  imagination  '  reason  in  its 
most  exalted  mood.'  But  he  draws  a  distinction  between 
imagination  and  fancy.  Imagination  is  the  objectifying 
contemplation  of  the  Platonist ;  it  sees  with  the  mind's 
eye  the  universal  ideas  which  are  the  archetypes  of  the 
sensible  world.  We  are  justified  in  believing  that  the 
world  as  God  sees  it  is  far  more  beautiful  and  harmonious 
than  the  world  as  we  see  it.  But  then  we  assume  that  the 
defect  is  in  us,  not  in  the  world,  and  we  do  not  suppose 
either  that  if  we  were  reborn  as  we  are  now  ten  thousand 
years  hence,  we  should  find  everything  better,  or  that 


22  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

we  can  live  in  a  world  of  fancy  which  has  no  roots  in 
experience. 

These  ultimate  values,  as  I  understand  the  matter, 
are  the  most  real  of  all  things,  being  the  primary  attributes 
of  the  Divine  nature.  The  creation  participates  in  these 
values  imperfectly,  and  in  so  far  as  it  does  not  exhibit 
them,  it  occupies  a  lower  rank,  not  only  in  worth,  but  in 
reality.  Its  imperfections  are  due  to  several  causes. 

In  the  first  place,  at  whatever  moment  we  choose  for  our 
valuation  of  experience,  we  are  compelled  to  fix  the  present 
value  of  existences  which  are  still  in  the  making,  and 
imperfect  because  they  are  unfinished.  Their  real  value 
is  neither  their  condition  at  the  present  moment  nor  the 
last  term  of  their  development,  but  their  whole  meaning 
and  significance  as  expressed  by  their  course  in  time  and 
their  action  upon  their  environment,  unified  in  the  know- 
ledge of  God. 

Secondly,  the  objects  on  which  we  pass  judgment  are 
not  independent  and  self-existing  units,  whose  value  is 
their  value  for  themselves  only  ;  they  are  in  concatenation 
with  larger  wholes,  to  which  they  contribute  partly  by 
self-surrender.  These  larger  purposes  are  in  part  hidden 
from  us  ;  our  knowledge  is  conditioned  by  our  needs  as 
human  beings  ;  these  needs  have  developed  the  faculties 
through  which  our  environment  acts  upon  our  consciousness. 
The  inevitable  result  is  that  our  outlook  is  too  anthropo- 
centric  ;  we  tend  to  assume  that  the  world  was  made  for 
us,  and  that  any  arrangements  which  do  not  subserve 
our  aims  and  our  happiness  are  an  indictment  of  the 
Creator  or  an  argument  against  the  providential  and 
rational  government  of  the  universe.  The  problem  of 
evil  cannot  be  entirely  solved,  but  we  have  magnified  and 
complicated  it  beyond  measure  by  our  wilfulness  and 
self-centred  claims.  For  though  we  cannot  step  off  our 
own  shadows  or  understand  the  Welt-politik  of  the  Almighty, 
we  are  not  obliged  to  regard  the  world  we  live  in  as  the 
predestined  playground  of  our  species  only.  The  ultimate 
values,  of  which  we  are  allowed  to  know  much  and  to 
divine  more,  are  the  inspirers  not  only  of  inter-human 
morality,  but  of  art  and  science*,  which  lift  us  at  once 


'  CONFESSIO  FIDEI '  23 

out  of  a  purely  anthropocentric  world.  These  impersonal 
interests  remove  from  us  no  small  part  of  '  the  heavy  and 
the  weary  weight  Of  all  this  unintelligible  world.'  The 
universe  does  not  appear  evil  to  anyone  who  lives  in  the 
pursuit  of  the  True  and  the  admiration  of  the  Beautiful. 

Thirdly,  if  we  hold  that  we  are  here  on  our  probation, 
it  is  plain  that  we  must  be  confronted  with  much  that  for 
us  is  actual  and  positive  evil.  In  no  other  way  could  the 
good  will  be  exercised.  In  a  world  where  the  good  met 
with  no  opposition,  morality  would  be  inert  and  useless, 
a  functionless  habit  which  could  no  more  be  called  moral 
than  the  tendency  of  a  stream  to  flow  downhill.  There 
can  be  no  morality  without  temptation,  no  victory  over 
evil  without  a  real  enemy.  Evil,  then,  is  the  inseparable 
condition  of  good  in  the  world  of  will,  which  is  the  world 
of  souls  on  their  probation,  the  world  of  which  time  is 
the  form.  There  is  no  evil  in  the  eternal  world  in  which 
God  dwells,  because  in  that  world  there  is  no  time,  no 
conflict,  no  contingency  of  any  kind.  Those  who  forfeit 
their  place  in  this  eternal  world,  the  world  of  spirit  which 
is  above  the  world  of  soul,  are  said  to  lose  their  souls. 
They  '  have  their  portion  in  this  life,'  the  half-real  world 
of  psychical  experience  through  which  we  were  meant  to 
pass  into  the  full  light  of  the  Divine  presence. 

Our  easy-going  hedonism  lands  us  in  insoluble  diffi- 
culties about  Divine  justice.  The  eternal  world  must,  I 
suppose,  contain  crushed  evil,  illustrating  negatively  the 
triumph  of  the  positive  values.  The  punishment  of  evil 
is  that  it  should  be  revealed  as  what  it  is.  In  heaven 
white  is  white  and  black  black.  But  we  are  vexed  and 
puzzled  at  seeing  the  bad  prosperous,  and  we  wish  to  see 
them  mulcted,  not  in  heaven's  currency,  but  in  our  own. 
So  we  imagine  infernal  torture-chambers  for  them,  and 
then,  being  very  humane,  decide  that  they  must  be 
unoccupied.  But  it  is  only  those  who  half  envy  the 
wicked  here  who  want  to  roast  them  hereafter.  The 
wicked  will  be  neither  annihilated  nor  tortured  nor,  in 
the  ordinary  sense,  forgiven  ;  justice  does  not  mean  that 
we  are  to  be  compensated  for  being  what  we  are.  The 
wicked  will  remain  in  the  environment  which  they  chose 


24  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

for  themselves  while  on  earth.  Their  punishment,  if  they 
are  not  inhumanly  bad,  will  be  that  which  Persius  desired 
for  cruel  tyrants  : — 

Virtutem  videant,  intabescantque  relicts. 

It  is,  however,  unnecessary  to  suppose  that  a  purely  bad 
man  has  ever  existed.  We  cannot  even  execute  a  murderer 
without  hanging  by  the  same  rope  three  or  four  men  who 
do  not  deserve  hanging.  '  Wickedness,'  as  Plotinus  says, 
'  is  always  human,  being  mixed  with  something  contrary 
to  itself.'  And  therefore  we  need  not  believe  that  any- 
one is  wholly  and  entirely  damned.  What  we  call  heaven 
and  hell  are  not  two  places  ;  they  are  the  two  ends  of  a 
ladder  of  values.  We  shall  all  stand  somewhere  on  the 
ladder,  where  we  deserve  to  be. 

Lastly,  we  magnify  the  problem  of  evil  by  our  narrow 
and  exclusive  moralism,  which  we  habitually  impose  upon 
the  Creator.  There  is  no  evidence  for  the  theory  that 
God  is  a  merely  moral  Being,  and  what  we  observe  of 
His  laws  and  operations  here  indicates  strongly  that  He 
is  not.  If  we  suppose  that  His  interests  are  about  equally 
divided  between  the  moral,  intellectual  and  aesthetic 
aspects  of  His  creation,  so  that  He  enjoys  all  the  wonders 
which  science  studies  and  all  the  beauties  which  art 
imitates,  no  less  than  the  holiness  of  a  saint  or  the  self- 
devotion  of  a  hero,  then  much  which  the  mere  moralist 
finds  a  scandal  in  the  government  of  the  world  receives 
a  satisfactory  explanation.  I  have  never  understood  why 
it  should  be  considered  derogatory  to  the  Creator  to 
suppose  that  He  has  a  sense  of  humour.  The  lack  of  this 
sense  is  considered  a  defect  in  human  nature  ;  and  some 
of  us  would  think  that  heaven  would  be  very  dull  without 
it.  The  world  is  full  of  absurdities  which  to  a  superior 
Being  may  afford  infinite  merriment.  Several  animals  are 
laughable,  though  few  are  really  ugly  ;  and  many  of  the 
antics  of  our  own  species  must  seem  exquisitely  ridiculous 
to  anyone  observing  them  from  outside.  We  often,  with- 
out meaning  it,  picture  God  as  a  sour  Puritan.  It  would 
be  easier  to  justify  His  ways  to  man  if  we  pictured  Him 
more  genially. 


4  CONFESSIO  FIDEI '  25 

The  unsolved  mystery  of  evil  is  not  so  much  the 
prevalence  of  suffering  as  the  apparently  reckless  waste 
and  destruction  of  the  higher  values.  I  think  it  is  true, 
as  Kobert  Louis  Stevenson  said,  that  '  what  we  suffer 
ourselves  has  no  longer  the  same  air  of  monstrous  injustice 
and  wanton  cruelty  that  suffering  wears  when  we  see  it 
in  the  case  of  others.'  I  think  we  can  generally  see  some 
reason  in  our  own  troubles,  not  perhaps  when  they  first 
fall  upon  us,  but  in  retrospect ;  it  is  the  apparent  injustice 
and  irrationality  of  fate  in  its  dealings  with  others,  which 
sometimes  oppresses  us.  Characters  with  noble  possi- 
bilities are  cut  off  prematurely,  or  crippled  by  lack  of 
opportunity,  or  corrupted  by  an  evil  environment  which 
they  cannot  escape.  So  dubious  is  the  supremacy  of  good 
in  the  world  as  we  see  it,  that  the  well-meant  apologies 
of  orthodox  optimism  sound  like  a  mockery,  and  we  are 
tempted  to  think  that  a  cynic  might  write  a  very  plausible 
essay  on  the  same  lines,  called  '  The  Problem  of  Good,' 
from  the  point  of  view  of  Mephistopheles.  Indeed,  I  do 
not  think  that  faith  in  God  can  be  justified  unless  we 
believe  in  an  eternal  spiritual  world  of  which  this  world 
is  an  imperfect  likeness.  If  our  philosophy  obliges  us  to 
assign  to  our  supreme  values  a  real  objective  existence 
as  the  contents  of  the  Creator's  mind,  we  have  a  back- 
ground of  reality  against  which  to  set  the  disappointments 
of  this  world.  We  are  not  able  to  picture  to  ourselves 
the  eternal  mode  of  existence,  because  we  have  experience 
only  of  the  conditions  which  belong  to  souls  on  their 
probation  ;  but  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  what  our 
minds  constantly  affirm,  that  those  values  which  are  the 
objects  of  the  soul's  love  and  aspiration  are  the  atmosphere 
which  the  perfected  spirit  breathes  when  it  awakes  after 
the  likeness  of  its  Maker  and  enjoys  His  presence  for  ever. 
If  this  is  so,  the  apparent  waste  of  spiritual  values  in 
time  is  analogous  to  the  wastefulness  of  nature  in  the 
creation  and  destruction  of  lower  values.  It  is  the  lavish- 
ness  of  a  Creator  who  draws  from  inexhaustible  stores.  » 

I  do  not  suggest  that  this  is  an  adequate  explanation 
of  ^the  problem  of  evil ;  I  do  not  think  that  an  adequate 
explanation  has  been  or  can  be  given.  But  the  problem 


26  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

seems  to  me  to  have  been  made  much  worse  than  it  really 
is.  It  is,  on  the  whole,  the  least  worthy  conceptions  of 
God  which  have  most  to  fear  from  this  difficulty. 

Recent  philosophy  has  given  increased  attention  to  the 
doctrine  of  values  as  the  key  to  an  understanding  of 
experienced  reality.  Rightly  interpreted,  this  doctrine  of 
values  seems  to  me  identical  with  the  Platonic  doctrine 
of  Ideas.  The  superior  rank  of  value- judgments  is  proved 
precisely  by  what  some  moderns  wrongly  call  their  sub- 
jectivity. The  valuer,  the  valuation  and  the  value  cannot 
be  separated.  Spirit  and  the  spiritual  world  are  a  unity 
in  duality.  The  world  of  sense  we  know  as  something 
different  from  ourselves  ;  the  world  of  spirit  we  cannot 
know  until  we  are  ourselves  spiritual.  This  is  the  doctrine 
of  St.  Paul,  no  less  than  of  Plotinus.  And  knowledge  of 
the  eternal  values  is  real  knowledge.  In  so  far  as  we  lay 
hold  of  wisdom,  goodness  and  beauty,  we  are  in  possession 
of  those  things  which  exist  in  their  own  right ;  which  are 
always  and  everywhere  the  same,  though  in  experience  they 
show  diverse  characters,  as  the  light  is  always  the  same, 
though  it  is  polarised  into  various  hues  ;  and  which  cannot 
be  means  to  anything  else.  This  is  to  lay  hold  of  eternal 
life. 

Religion  is  the  faith  that  gives  substance  to  values, 
and  philosophy  aims  at  giving  them  their  proper  place 
in  a  harmonious  scheme  of  existence.  It  is  only  by  the 
path  of  value  that  we  reach  God  at  all.  God  is,  as  has 
been  said,  the  Valor  Valorum,  the  value  of  values,  the 
supreme  value.  Without  valuation  there  can  be  no 
philosophy  and  no  science.  The  distinction  between 
appearance  and  reality,  which  has  taken  many  forms  in 
philosophy,  is  itself  a  judgment  of  value.  If  we  say  with 
Milton  that  earth  is  but  a  shadow  of  heaven,  or  that  the 
things  which  are  not  seen  are  more  real  than  the  things 
which  are  seen,  we  make  this  judgment  because  we  con- 
sider the  spiritual  of  higher  worth  than  the  temporal, 
and  in  virtue  of  the  fundamental  optimism  which  is  the 
basis  of  all  living  faith,  we  affirm  that  the  best  is  also  the 
most  real.  The  '  Progressism  '  of  much  modern  thought 
is  a  poor  substitute  for  this  belief  in  the  substantial  reality 


'  CONFESSIO  FIDEI '  27 

of  the  eternal  values.  It  is  a  residue  of  still  undefeated 
materialism,  which  can  find  no  food  for  its  faith  and  hope 
in  an  unseen  world,  and  therefore  throws  them  into  a 
mundane  future.  How  baseless  this  attempt  is,  has  been 
already  shown.  It  takes  the  world  of  common  experience 
as  the  real  world,  and  then  seeks  to  improve  it  by  building 
upon  this  foundation  an  imaginary  superstructure  in  the 
future — an  unending  upward  movement,  which  science 
itself  knows  to  be  impossible.  The  idealised  future  is  a 
new  world  brought  into  existence  to  redress  the  balance 
of  the  old.  In  the  same  way  the  religious  materialist 
tries  to  give  himself  a  pleasanter  picture  of  the  world  by 
mixing  it  with  creations  of  the  will  and  imagination.  He 
endeavours  to  correct  the  deficiencies  of  scientific  truth 
by  mixing  it  with  scientific  falsehood,  just  as  some  have 
endeavoured  to  vindicate  the  freedom  of  the  human  will 
by  mixing  incoherence  with  mechanism.  In  this  way  one 
scheme  of  values  is  confounded,  and  another  degraded. 
It  is  a  bridge  built  in  mid  stream  and  touching  neither 
bank. 

The  right  starting-point,  as  I  have  said,  is  to  examine 
the  conception  of  the  world  as  known  to  science.  It  is 
obvious  that  it  is  an  abstract  conception,  because  it  ignores, 
for  its  own  purposes,  all  aesthetic  and  moral  judgments. 
Some  writers  accuse  science  of  giving  us  a  world  of  facts 
without  values.  I  cannot  agree  with  this  opinion,  which 
seems  to  me  a  mischievous  error.  Windelband  speaks 
of  '  the  logical  value  of  generalisation ' ;  and  there  is  no 
doubt  that  what  science  calls  truth  is  a  value,  and  indeed 
one  of  the  ultimate  values.  Ray  Lankester  says  :  '  Science 
commends  itself  to  us  as  does  honesty  and  great  art  and  all 
fine  thought  and  deed,  because  it  satisfies  man's  soul.' 
One  of  the  troubles  of  the  modern  scientist  is  that  physics 
has  disintegrated  the  atoms  and  molecules  which  were 
the  material  vehicles  of  his  values,  till  they  threaten  to 
evanesce  into  charges  of  electricity  which  it  is  not  easy 
to  invest  with  any  qualities  at  all.  The  world  of  science 
is  essentially  a  world  of  values,  but  of  values  closely 
attached  to  phenomena  which  have  the  property  of  being 
quantitatively  commensurable.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  no 


28  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

science  can  escape  other  qualitative  judgments,  which  do 
not  belong  to  'the  logical  value  of  generalisation.'  The 
scientists  of  the  nineteenth  century  were  not  always 
philosophers  enough  to  recognise  this,  but  their  successors 
see  more  clearly.  When,  for  example,  sequence  was  turned 
into  '  causation,'  the  idea  of  teleology  was  smuggled  in 
unexamined.  In  recent  years,  several  scientific  thinkers 
have  acknowledged  that  the  old  abstractions  cannot  be 
maintained.  Bitter,  writing  in  1911,  says  :  '  We  cannot 
inspect  plant  and  animal  life  broadly  and  soundly,  either 
in  technical  science  or  in  common  intelligence,  unless  the 
aesthetic  side  of  our  nature  joins  with  the  intellectual 
in  determining  our  attitude  towards  the  beings  we  deal 
with.'  But  these  qualitative  judgments  sometimes  warp 
the  scientific  mind.  For  instance,  Herbert  Spencer's 
artificial  system  of  evolution  seems  to  be  based  on  the 
false  value- judgment  that  the  more  complex  is  the'  higher,' 
an  assumption  which  runs  through  much  of  contemporary 
thought. 

In  its  mathematical  or  quantitative  measurements 
science  has  found  a  method  of  bringing  all  phenomena 
under  one  system.  Things  are  said  to  be  known  when  they 
can  be  weighed  and  counted,  and  when  their  behaviour 
in  various  combinations  can  be  predicted.  The  laws  of 
nature  in  theory  at  least  form  a  closed  system,  and  the 
values  which  are  found  in  them  are  the  values  of  con- 
formity to  rule,  like  the  working  of  a  perfect  machine  or 
of  a  mathematical  demonstration.  Einstein  has  no  doubt 
disturbed  the  calm  waters  of  Newtonian  physics  ;  but 
I  find  it  difficult  to  believe  that  his  theories  will  prove  so 
subversive  as  some  now  suppose  ;  nor  do  I  think  that 
they  have  much  metaphysical  importance. 

The  idea  of  a  quantitative  mathematical  universe  is 
not  found  in  the  atoms.  It  is  the  product  of  interplay 
between  thought  and  its  object,  a  rational  scheme  with 
an  inner  coherence.  Whether  it  is  really  a  closed  system 
may  be  doubted.  Such  phenomena  as  regularly  recurring 
eclipses  show  that  for  many  purposes  it  works  admirably  ; 
but  the  influence  of  the  imponderables  on  human  action 
cannot  be  denied,  and  we  have  already  seen  that  biology 


'  CONFESSIO  FIDEI '  29 

and  psychology  are  claiming  their  freedom.  In  short, 
like  every  other  synthesis  that  is  based  on  abstraction, 
the  world  as  known  to  science  has  some  ragged  edges. 
The  old  difficulty  about  the  infinity  of  space  and  time  has 
never  been  solved  ;  it  remains  as  a  warning  to  naturalists 
that  omnia  exeunt  in  mysterium. 

Mere  time  contains,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  no  element  of 
value  and  therefore  none  of  existence.  Duration,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  always  a  value,  and  is  known  as  such.  And 
this  introduces  us  to  the  world  of  Will,  of  which  durational 
time  is  the  form.  We  have  classified  moral  goodness  as  one 
of  the  ultimate  values.  But  a  moment's  reflection  shows  us 
that  it  is  in  some  ways  unlike  the  others.  It  speaks  in  the 
imperative  mood.  It  rejects  what  is  for  what  ought  to  be. 
It  affirms  negative  as  well  as  positive  values,  and  leaves 
us  with  a  radical  dualism — that  of  good  and  bad.  It 
seems  therefore  to  belong  to  a  lower  and  less  perfect 
sphere  of  existence  than  the  True  and  the  Beautiful. 
For  these  latter  have  their  home  in  eternity ;  whereas 
moral  goodness  belongs  to  the  world  of  struggle  in  which 
we  live  here.  Morality  as  we  know  it  cannot  be  ultimate, 
because  it  aims  at  its  own  supersession  by  the  destruction 
of  the  antagonistic  principle,  which  is  nevertheless  the 
condition  of  its  own  existence.  If  there  were  no  evil, 
there  would  be  no  morality. 

Nevertheless,  our  very  life  here  is  bound  up  with  the 
moral  struggle.  It  is  even  more  intimately  real  and  vital 
for  us,  as  souls  on  probation,  than  the  homage  to  Truth 
and  Beauty  which  may  occupy  spirits  set  free.  Nor  is  there 
any  danger,  in  our  experience,  that  morality  may  ever 
perish  for  want  of  an  antagonist.  The  upward  struggle  in 
which  morality  lives  has  no  finality  ;  an  achieved  good 
always  points  the  way  to  a  possible  better. 

It  is  here,  in  the  struggle  of  the  moral  will,  that  we  may 
find  some  explanation  and  justification  of  that  philosophy 
of  progress  with  which  we  have  dealt  rather  hardly. 
The  unrealised  ideal — -the  ideal  which  we  hope  to  see 
realised  some  day — is  always  before  the  gaze  of  the  moral 
will,  which  sees  in  the  prospect  of  a  better  future  a  vision 
of  its  completed  task.  We  may  even  say  that  the  will 


30  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

transmutes  the  idea  of  Divine  perfection  into  that  of 
victorious  energy.  So  long  as  we  avoid  two  errors — 
that  of  transferring  the  idea  of  progress  to  the  being  of 
God  Himself,  and  that  of  supposing  that  progress  is  a 
law  of  nature  which  works  automatically — we  are  at  liberty 
to  cherish  the  inspiring  thought  that  we  are  fellow-workers 
with  God  in  realising  His  purposes  in  time. 

Further,  we  must  remember  that  though  morality 
is  human  and  relative  to  the  conditions  under  which  we 
live,  the  right  and  good,  towards  which  morality  strains, 
is  an  eternal  attribute  of  God.  Morality  is  not  an  end  to 
anything  else,  except  to  the  realisation  of  this  right  and 
good  which  is  an  ultimate  value.  Morality  is  not,  for 
example,  a  means  towards  the  happiness  of  ourselves  or 
of  others.  Utilitarianism,  '  the  greatest  happiness  of  the 
greatest  number,'  was  an  attempt  to  apply  quantitative 
standards  of  measurement  to  spiritual  goods.  It  was 
an  attempt  to  weigh  the  imponderable.  Hence  came  its 
popularity  ;  for  it  offered  a  calculus  by  which  the  value 
of  conduct  could  be  estimated  as  exactly  as  the  weight 
of  a  bag  of  coins.  But  it  failed  completely,  mainly  because 
all  ends  turn  to  means  in  its  hands.  Nothing  then  stands 
in  its  own  right ;  a  utilitarian  cannot  even  be  a  consistent 
hedonist. 

The  Beauty  of  the  world,  as  many  have  felt,  is  the 
strongest  evidence  we  have  of  the  goodness  and  benevolence 
of  the  Creator.  Not,  of  course,  that  the  world  was  made 
beautiful  for  our  sakes.  It  is  beautiful  because  its  Author 
is  beautiful ;  and  we  should  remember  that  when  the  old 
writers  spoke  of  God  as  the  Author  of  nature,  they  used 
the  word  in  much  the  same  sense  as  if  we  said  that  a  man 
was  the  author  of  his  own  photograph.  But  we  are 
allowed  to  see  and  enjoy  beauty,  although  the  gift  cannot 
be  proved  to  promote  our  own  survival.  It  looks  like 
a  free  gift  of  God.  Beauty  is  a  general  quality  of  nature, 
and  not  only  of  organic  nature  ;  crystals  are  very  beautiful. 
As  in  the  case  of  the  other  ultimate  values,  the  emotion 
of  beauty  is  aroused  by  the  meeting  of  mind  and  its  object ; 
and  not  only  must  the  object  be  beautiful ;  the  perceiving 
mind  must  also  be  beautiful  and  healthy.  The  vile  or 


'CONFESSIO  FIDEI'  31 

vulgar  mind  not  only  cannot  discern  beauty  ;  it  is  a  great 
destroyer  of  beauty  everywhere. 

The  love  of  beauty  is  super-personal  and  disinterested, 
like  all  the  spiritual  values  ;  it  promotes  common  enjoyment 
and  social  sympathy.  Unquestionably  it  is  one  of  the 
three  ultimate  values,  ranking  with  Goodness  and  Truth. 

The  appeal  of  the  three  ultimate  values  to  the  average 
man  is  not  equal.  Many  persons  are  unmoved  by  beauty, 
and  in  the  large  majority  we  must,  I  fear,  agree  with  Sir 
Leslie  Stephen  that  '  the  love  of  truth  is  but  a  feeble 
passion.'  Few  of  us  could  give  a  hearty  assent  to  the  noble 
words  of  Bishop  Berkeley,  who,  it  must  be  remembered, 
was  a  practical  philanthropist,  not  an  armchair  philosopher. 
'  Truth  is  the  cry  of  all,  but  the  game  of  a  few.  Certainly, 
where  it  is  the  chief  passion,  it  doth  not  give  way  to  vulgar 
cares  and  views  ;  nor  is  it  contented  with  a  little  ardour 
in  the  early  time  of  life  ;  active  perhaps  to  pursue,  but 
not  so  fit  to  weigh  and  revise.  He  that  would  make  a 
real  progress  in  knowledge  must  dedicate  his  age  as  well  as 
youth,  the  later  growth  as  well  as  first-fruits,  at  the  altar 
of  Truth.' 

There  are  no  other  absolute  values  besides  Goodness, 
Beauty,  and  Truth.  Happiness,  for  example,  is  not 
another  absolute  value,  but  is  attached  to  the  possession 
of  any  of  the  three.  I  call  them  absolute  values  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  utilitarian,  who  degrades  them  from  ends  to 
means,  and  to  the  pragmatist,  who  lowers  the  pursuit 
of  truth  to  a  sceptical  opportunism.  The  tokens  of  an 
absolute  value  are,  I  think,  four  in  number.  Absolute 
values  are  ends,  not  instruments  ;  they  are  not  even 
instruments  to  each  other,  though  in  experience  we  never 
come  into  contact  with  any  one  of  them  quite  pure  ;  for 
example,  aesthetic  pleasure  is  never  quite  independent 
of  ethical  and  scientific  truth.  Secondly,  they  require 
disinterestedness  ;  a  merely  human,  still  more  a  merely 
personal  reference  destroys  our  appreciation  of  them. 
Subjectively,  we  find  that  a  very  pure  happiness  attends 
our  apprehension  of  them  ;  and  lastly,  we  find  that  they 
bring  with  them  a  permanent  enrichment  of  our  personality. 

They  differ  from  the   lower   goods   of   life   in    being 


32  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

not  measurable  or  ponderable ;  and  in  being  seemingly 
unlimited  in  potential  supply.  They  are  also  independent 
of  any  particulars  in  the  world  of  phenomena.  For 
example,  mathematical  truth  is  indifferent  to  the  question 
whether  a  perfect  circle  exists  anywhere  in  the  nature 
of  things  ;  and  art  is  not  restricted  to  the  imitation  of 
individual  objects.  Goodness,  too,  does  not  require  a  full 
scope  for  its  exhibition  ;  the  saint  may  be  a  prisoner,  or 
bed-ridden. 

They  are  indestructible  and  eternal.1  They  are 
spiritual ;  that  is  to  say,  they  belong  to  a  supra-temporal 
and  supra-spatial  sphere  of  existence,  though  their  creative 
energy  is  always  operative  in  space  and  time.  They 
exist  after  the  mode  of  spiritual  things,  which  are  the 
externalised  thoughts  of  God.  Our  knowledge  of  them 
is  not '  subjective  ' ;  subjective  knowledge  is  no  knowledge 
at  all.  '  Validity,'  says  James  Ward,  '  implies  reality 
and  is  otherwise  meaningless.' 

We  find  their  imprint  everywhere,  not  least  in  the 
simplest  and  '  lowest '  parts  of  creation.  What  Goethe 
calls  '  nature's  capacity  for  self-forgetfulness  '  makes  the 
humblest  flower  a  pure  mirror  of  the  Creator's  mind. 

Our  capacity  for  breathing  in  this  Divine  atmosphere 
is  conditioned  by  the  necessity  of  energising  in  the  harsher 
air  of  the  world  of  our  probation.  It  is  the  paradox  of  the 
spiritual  life  that  if  we  could  take  to  ourselves  '  the  wings 
of  a  dove  '  and  escape  from  this  world  of  mingled  good 
and  evil,  we  should  not  reach  the  rest  which  we  desire. 
For  one  at  least  of  the  Divine  values,  Goodness,  cannot 
be  realised  by  flight,  but  only  by  struggle.  Nevertheless, 
our  citizenship  is  in  heaven,  our  life  here  a  pilgrimage. 
Secularised  Christianity  ignores  or  denies  this  ;  and  it 
should  by  this  time  be  plain  that  secularised  Christianity 
has  neither  savour  nor  salt.  '  Otherworldliuess  '  alone  can 
transform  this  world,  because  the  other  world  is  the  reality 
of  which  this  world  is  the  shadow. 

1  Hoffding's  argument  for  the  '  conservation  of  values  '  seems 
to  me  unnecessary.  In  their  essence  they  are  supra-temporal  and 
inherently  imperishable  ;  in  their  manifestation  they  are  perpetually 
created  anew. 


'  CONFESSIO  FIDEI '  33 

Secularism,  in  promising  us  a  delusive  millennium  upon 
earth,  has  robbed  mankind  of  the  hope  of  immortality. 
As  the  historian  Ozanam  says,  it  promises  men  an  earthly 
paradise  at  the  end  of  a  flowery  path,  and  leads  them  to 
a  premature  hell  at  the  end  of  a  way  of  blood.  This  hope 
must  be  brought  back  by  a  more  spiritual  philosophy. 

One  of  the  greatest  needs  of  our  time  is  a  standard  book 
on  the  doctrine  of  immortality.  It  would  be  a  life's 
work  for  any  man,  and  the  author  would  have  to  be  both 
a  philosopher  and  a  historian.  The  best  book  that  has  yet 
appeared  is  von  Hiigel's  '  Eternal  Life ' ;  but  there  is  ample 
room  for  another  independent  study  of  the  whole  subject. 

Eternal  life  and  survival  are  not  the  same  ;  and  yet  they 
are  related  to  each  other.  Eternal  life  is  a  quality  of 
ultimate  reality  ;  survival  is  a  quantitative  measure  of 
duration.  Eternal  life  belongs  to  the  conception  of  reality 
as  a  kingdom  of  values  ;  survival  conceives  human  existence 
as  a  page  of  history.  The  relation  between  them  raises  the 
question  of  the  nature  and  reality  of  time,  the  most  difficult 
and  perhaps  the  most  important  of  all  philosophical  problems . 

We  are  not  dealing  with  a  mere  intellectual  puzzle, 
but  with  a  problem  which  is  being  forced  upon  all  Christian 
bodies,  and  upon  every  thoughtful  mind.  If  we  com- 
pare the  religious  and  homiletic  literature  of  the  present 
day  with  that  of  earlier  generations,  nothing  will  strike 
us  more  forcibly  than  the  secularisation  of  the  Christian 
hope  which  marks  the  utterances  of  all  who  wish  to  enlist 
the  sympathies  of  the  younger  generation.  The  old  gaudily 
coloured  pictures  of  bliss  and  torment  have  passed  away. 
Our  contemporaries  desire  a  religion  without  a  hell ;  and 
they  even  seem  to  prefer  a  religion  without  a  heaven. 
References  to  the  future  life  are  perfunctory,  and  are 
chiefly  used  in  consoling  mourners  and  fortifying  those 
about  to  die.  A  working-class  audience  in  particular 
listens  with  marked  impatience  to  addresses  upon  human 
immortality.  The  working  man  is  apt  to  think  that  the 
preacher  is  trying  to  put  him  off  with  cheques  drawn 
upon  the  bank  of  heaven,  the  solvency  of  which  he  greatly 
doubts,  in  order  to  persuade  him  not  to  claim  what  he 
conceives  to  be  his  rights  here  and  now.  The  reformers 

n.  D 


34  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

in  the  sixteenth  century  complained  of  '  Purgatory  Pick- 
purse  ' ;  our  revolutionists  think  that  heaven  and  hell 
are  made  to  discharge  the  same  function  of  bolstering  up 
social  injustice.  I  am  not  speaking  of  the  irreligious, 
who  at  all  times  have  derided  or  neglected  the  hopes  and 
fears  of  the  Christian  ;  nor  of  the  devout,  who  have  not 
been  much  affected  by  the  modern  changes  ;  but  of  the 
large  body  of  well-intentioned  people  who  call  themselves 
Christians  and  attend,  at  least  sometimes,  our  places  of 
worship.  These  people,  as  a  class,  have  hopes  in  Christ, 
but  in  this  life  only.  Christianity  for  them  is  mainly  an 
instrument  of  social  reform.  A  new  apocalyptism  has 
taken  the  place  of  '  the  blessed  hope  of  everlasting  life  ' ; 
it  has  driven  it  out  and  almost  killed  it. 

In  part,  this  is  an  illusion  which  will  cure  itself. 
Attempts  have  been  made  to  realise  the  millennium  in 
Russia,  and  the  result  has  been  and  is  such  an  Inferno 
as  the  world  has  never  seen  before.  At  home,  the  attempt 
to  establish  a  paradise  of  high  wages  and  short  hours  has 
produced  the  consequences  which  we  all  deplore  and  which 
all  sane  economists  predicted.  The  new  apocalyptism 
is  stricken  to  death.  But  let  no  one  suppose  that  we  shall 
go  back  to  the  popular  teaching  about  the  future  life 
which  satisfied  our  grandparents.  There  must  be  and 
ought  to  be  great  changes. 

For  these  traditional  notions  have  been  rejected  very 
largely  because  they  are  not  good  enough  to  be  true. 
Belief  in  a  future  life  is  sometimes  a  religious  belief,  but 
by  no  means  always.  If  I  believe  in  a  future  life  because 
I  enjoy  my  existence  here  and  want  to  perpetuate  it  beyond 
my  earthly  span,  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  religion. 
If  I  desire  a  future  life  because  I  am  miserable  here  and 
think  that  I  have  a  claim  to  compensation,  that  is  not 
religion  either.  If  I  desire  a  future  life  because  I  have 
made  certain  investments  in  good  works,  on  which  I  hope 
to  make  a  handsome  profit,  in  ,the  words  of  the  hymn — 

Whatever,  Lord,  we  lend  to  Thee, 
Repaid  a  thousandfold  will  be  ; 
Then  gladly  will  we  give  to  Thee, 
Who  givest  all, — 


•CONFES8IO  FIDEI*  35 

that  has  no  more  to  do  with  religion  than  if  I  invested  my 
money  on  the  faith  of  one  of  the  very  similarly  worded 
prospectuses  which  I  find  on  my  breakfast  table. 

The  main  thesis  of  this  essay  is  that  true  faith  is  belief 
in  the  reality  of  absolute  values.  It  is  in  this  kingdom 
of  absolute  values  that  we  must  look  for  and  find  our 
immortality.  It  is  because  we  know  what  Truth,  Beauty, 
and  Goodness  mean  that  we  have  our  part  in  the  eternal 
life  of  God,  Whose  revealed  attributes  these  are.  And  I 
repeat  that  these  values  stand  in  their  own  right,  and 
cannot  be  made  the  means  to  anything  else.  This  has 
been  felt  at  all  times  by  the  best  men  and  women.  The 
last  of  the  great  Greek  philosophers  says  severely  :  '  If  a 
man  seeks  in  the  good  life  anything  apart  from  itself,  it 
is  not  the  good  life  that  he  is  seeking.'  And  a  Christian 
saint  expressed  a  wish  that  heaven  and  hell  were  blotted 
out,  that  she  might  love  God  for  Himself  only.  Thus  there 
is  a  noble  element  in  the  rejection  of  the  old  doctrines 
of  reward  and  punishment.  It  is  felt,  though  not  always 
formulated  .explicitly,  that  Divine  justice  must  be  exercised, 
so  to  speak,  in  pari  materia ;  that  the  appropriate  reward 
for  a  life  of  disinterested  service  and  self-sacrifice  is  not 
a  residence  in  a  city  with  streets  of  gold  and  gates  of  pearl, 
enlivened  by  '  the  shout  of  them  that  triumph,  the  song 
of  them  that  feast '  ;  and  that  the  appropriate  punishment 
of  those  who  have  been  selfish,  hard-hearted,  hypocritical 
and  worldly  is  not  to  be  roasted  in  an  oven.  If  these 
rewards  and  punishments  were  known,  as  orthodoxy 
declares  them  to  be  certain,  they  would  vulgarise  virtue 
and  make  disinterestedness  impossible.  Popular  teaching 
has  invested  God  with  our  own  mercenariness  and  vindictive- 
ness.  In  its  anxiety  to  make  its  sanctions  impressive, 
it  has  sought  to  make  up  for  the  uncertainty  and  deferred 
date  of  its  inducements  by  painting  them  in  the  crudest 
possible  colours,  and  has  thus  outraged  our  sense  of  justice 
and  decency.  The  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  cannot 
be  recognised  in  a  God  who  could  so  reward  and  so  punish. 
And  there  is  nothing  in  our  experience  of  the  present  life 
to  suggest  that  in  the  second  volume  of  God's  book  the 
Divine  government  will  be  of  a  totally  different  kind  from 


36  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

that  under  which  we  live  here.  Within  our  experience, 
the  reward  of  good  living  is  not  to  make  a  fortune,  but 
to  become  a  good  man  ;  and  the  punishment  of  habitual 
sin  is  to  become  a  bad  man.  '  Sow  an  action  and  reap 
a  habit ;  sow  a  habit  and  reap  a  character  ;  sow  a  character 
and  reap  a  destiny.'  '  Be  not  deceived,'  says  St.  Paul, 
'  God  is  not  mocked  ;  for  whatsoever  a  man  soweth  that 
shall  he  reap.'  This  we  can  believe  ;  this  seems  to  us  to 
be  just.  But  the  popular  eschatology  makes  the  Creator 
an  Oriental  Sultan,  who  prides  himself  on  the  crude  lavish- 
ness  of  his  rewards,  and  the  implacable  ferocity  of  his 
punishments.  We  cannot  suppose  that  the  civilised  world 
will  ever  come  back  to  these  beliefs.  They  are,  as  I  have 
said,  not  good  enough  to  be  true. 

Again,  the  advance  of  science  has  made  the  old  eschato- 
logical  framework  untenable.  Curiously  enough,  it  was  not 
Darwin  or  Lyell  or  any  other  nineteenth-century  scientist 
who  struck  the  blow,  but  Copernicus  and  Galileo  in  the  time 
of  the  Renaissance.  If  the  earth  is  a  planet  revolving  round 
the  sun,  and  if  the  solar  system  is  only  a  speck  in  infinite 
space,  the  old  geographical  heaven  and  hell  must  be 
abandoned.  Hell  is  not  beneath  our  feet ;  volcanic 
eruptions  are  not  caused,  as  the  Schoolmen  suggested,  by 
overcrowding  in  the  infernal  regions  ;  and  heaven  is  not 
a  place  which  could  be  reached  by  an  aeroplane  if  we  knew 
the  way.  There  is  no  religious  topography  ;  there  is  no 
particular  place  where  God  lives.  This  has  been  admitted 
by  Christian  philosophers  for  ages  ;  long  before  Galileo, 
theologians  declared,  without  being  accused  of  heresy, 
that  God  has  His  centre  everywhere  and  His  circumference 
nowhere  ;  so  that  we  cannot  get  nearer  heaven  by  altering 
our  position  in  space.  Educated  Christians,  even  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  were  not  committed  to  the  child's  picture-book 
theology  which  is  often  supposed  to  be  the  only  accredited 
doctrine  of  the  Christian  religion.  But  it  is  notorious  that 
even  at  the  present  day  most  people  still  believe  that 
Christianity  asserts  the  existence  of  a  geographical  heaven 
and  hell.  Here.  then,  we  have  a  plain  case  in  which  tradi- 
tional teaching  is  flatly  contradictory  to  the  facts  of  science 
which  have  been  known  for  centuries,  and  also  ethicallv 


'  CONFESSIO  FIDEI '  37 

revolting.    Can  we  be  surprised  that  it  has  lost  all  power 
to  influence  conduct  or  command  real  credence  ? 

The  main  reason  why  so  little  has  been  done  to  relieve 
Christianity  of  this  burden  is  that  certain  other  beliefs  are 
bound  up  with  it.  For  instance,  if  heaven  is  not  a  place, 
what  shall  we  do  with  our  bodies  in  heaven  ?  And  what 
reason  is  there  any  longer  to  believe  in  a  general  resurrection, 
or  in  the  physical  resurrection  and  ascension  of  Christ  ? 
Many  no  doubt  would  be  glad  to  be  relieved  of  these 
miracles,  which  are  a  stumbling-block  to  them  ;  but  many 
others  would  feel  that  the  foundations  of  their  belief  were 
being  shaken  if  the  physical  resurrection  were  impugned. 
The  majority  of  men  and  women  are,  in  a  sense,  materialists. 
They  live  in  a  world  of  space  and  time  ;  and  the  space- 
less and  timeless  is  for  them  the  unreal  or  non-existent. 
Materialistic  dogmatism  is  the  clerical  form  of  dogmatic 
materialism.  The  theology  of  the  average  bigot  is  of 
amazing  crudity,  but  he  has  never  thought  it  out.  His 
theology,  such  as  it  is,  is  the  carrier  of  his  values.  It  is 
nothing  to  him  that  thought  and  knowledge  have  left 
behind  forms  of  expression  which  were  once  natural  enough. 
He  thinks  that  his  values  are  being  attacked,  and  resists 
furiously.  Thus  it  is  very  difficult  to  get  rid  of  irrational 
and  obsolete  forms  of  belief,  especially  in  eschatology,  where 
all  is  and  must  be  symbolic.  '  Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear 
heard,  neither  hath  it  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to 
conceive,  the  things  that  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that 
love  Him.'  It  is  true  that  St.  Paul  goes  on  to  say  that '  God 
hath  revealed  them  unto  us  by  His  Spirit.'  But  the  Spirit 
does  not  reveal  phenomenal  facts,  but  spiritual  values, 
the  reality  of  which  it  assures  to  us.  St.  Paul  makes  a 
clear  distinction  between  the  knowledge  which  is  open 
to  the  carnal  mind  and  that  which  comes  through  the 
Spirit.  '  The  carnal  mind  knoweth  not  the  things  of  the 
Spirit  of  God ;  it  cannot  know  them,  because  they  are- 
spiritually  discerned.'  '  Now  we  see  through  a  glass,  darkly ; 
but  then  face  to  face ;  now  I  know  in  part,  but  then  shall 
I  know  even  as  also  I  am  known.'  In  this  life,  and  in  so 
far  as  we  '  mind  earthly  things,'  we  are  unable  to  form 
any  clear  conception  of  the  spiritual  world.  Any  clear 


58  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

picture  that  we  form  must  be  partially  untrue,  precisely 
because  it  is  intelligible  to  the  'carnal  mind.'  A  local 
heaven  and  hell,  with  graphic  joys  and  tortures,  is  eminently 
intelligible  to  the  carnal  mind  ;  it  is  eminently  unsatis- 
factory to  the  '  spiritual  man,'  even  before  he  has  gone 
very  far  in  the  knowledge  of  God  and  Christ  which  St.  John 
says  is  eternal  life.  But  the  mass  of  believers  still  demand 
a  sign  and  still  desire  to  interpret  their  faith  materialistically. 
They  desire  to  do  it,  and  yet  they  cannot,  because  the  new 
knowledge,  which  is  now  common  property,  cries  out 
against  it,  and  their  moral  sense  also  protests  ;  hence  the 
dilemma  in  which  the  Church  is  placed. 

Nevertheless,  we  have  no  real  choice.  We  cannot 
uphold,  as  part  of  our  religious  faith,  beliefs  about  the 
external  world  which  we  know  to  be  untenable.  To  do 
this  is  to  infect  the  whole  body  of  our  beliefs  with  insincerity. 
We  acquiesce  too  easily  in  '  the  conflict  between  religion 
and  science.'  There  ought  to  be  no  such  conflict.  The 
conflict  of  religion  is  not  with  science,  but  with  the 
materialistic  philosophy  built  upon  science,  a  philosophy 
which  takes  an  abstract  field  of  inquiry  for  the  whole  of 
reality,  and  ignores  those  spiritual  values  which  are  just 
as  much  part  of  our  knowledge  as  the  purely  quantitative 
aspects  of  reality  with  which  the  natural  sciences  are 
concerned.  From  this  false  philosophy  we  can  only  be 
rescued  by  a  truer  philosophy,  which  endeavours  to  do 
justice  to  values  as  well  as  to  what  we  call  facts.  We 
should  try  to  think  out  these  problems,  difficult  as  they 
are,  for  without  this  philosophy  we  shall  not  be  able  to 
vindicate  our  faith  in  eternal  life  against  those  who  in  the 
name  of  science  would  rob  us  of  it. 

Let  us  consider  briefly  the  teaching  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment about  eternal  life  and  survival. 

We  know  that  Christ  preached  to  simple-minded 
Jewish  peasants,  men  who  had  had  indeed  a  good  education, 
but  were  quite  untouched  by  the  religious  philosophy 
which  we  find  in  Philo.  There  is  no  trace  of  Greek  ideas 
in  the  Synoptic  Gospels.  The  great  difficulty  for  us  in 
considering  the  teaching  of  Christ  about  eternal  life  is  the 
hotly  controversial  question  whether  He  shared  the 


'CONFESSIO  FIDEI'  39 

apocalyptic    dreams    of    some    of    His    contemporaries. 
Personally,  I  think  that  He  used  the  traditional  prophetic 
language  about  the  Day  of  the  Lord,  but  that,  like  John 
Baptist,  He  revived  the  older  prophetic  tradition,  and  did 
not  attach  Himself  to  the  recent  apocalyptists.     No  doubt 
there  are  apocalyptic  passages  in  the  Synoptics,  and,  what 
is  more  important,  the  first  two  generations  of  Christians 
believed  that  the  '  Presence  '  of  the  Messiah  was  imminent. 
But  the  expectation  of  a  sudden,  dramatic  and,  above 
all,  violent  upsetting  of  all  human  institutions  by  miracle 
seems  quite  contrary  to  the  temper  of  His  mind,  and  would 
be  hardly  compatible   with  sanity,   much  less  with  the 
position  which  Christians  are  bound  to  give  Him.     It  is 
more  to  our  present  purpose  to  remind  ourselves  that 
Christ  dwells  very  little  on  the  future  state,  except  in  the 
parables  of  the  Sheep  and  Goats,  and  of  Dives  and  Lazarus  ; 
that  these  parables  do  not  profess  to  be  descriptions  of 
actual  events,  whether  past,  present  or  future ;    and  that 
they  reproduce  the  current  notions  of  the  period  about  the 
next  world,  notions  which  have  no  supernatural  authority. 
His  one  argument  for  immortality  is  '  God  is  not  the  God 
of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living ;  for  we  all  live  unto  Him.' 
This  is   an  argument,   not  for  resurrection   or   survival, 
but  for  eternal  life.     '  Because  He  lives,  we  shall  live  also.' 
All   through  the  Pauline  Epistles   we  can   trace  the 
receding  influence  of  Messianic  Judaism,  with  its  doctrine 
of  a  reign  of  the  saints  on  earth,  and  the  growing  influence 
of  the  Greek  idea  of  eternal  life,  as  a  higher  mode  of  exist- 
ence differing  qualitatively  from  earthly  life  in  time,  and 
accessible  here  and  now  to  the  '  spiritual.'     The  '  kingdom 
of  God '  is  seldom  mentioned  ;    the  '  Son  of  Man '  dis- 
appears ;  the  dominant  thought  is  the  contrast  of  life 
according  to  the  flesh  and  life  according  to  the  Spirit, 
while  between  the   two  comes   the  psychic  life,   having 
affinities   with  both,  but   differing  from   Spirit  in   being 
individual  and  purely  human,  while  the  life  of  Spirit  is 
in  a  sense  super-individual  and  '  one '  in  all  persons,  and 
divine.     '  We  are  all  made  to  drink  into  one  Spirit.'     This 
psychology,  with  its  tripartite  classification  of  the  person- 
ality, is  distinctly  Greek,  not  Jewish,  and  it  has  remained 


40  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

the   cornerstone   of   Christian   philosophy,   which   in   its 
doctrine    of   the    Spirit,    practically   identified    with    the 
glorified  and  yet  ever-present  Christ,  has  a  strongly  mystical 
tendency.     Life  in  the  Spirit,   eternal  life,  is  a  present 
possession  of  the  spiritual  man  ;   but  while  '  in  the  body  ' 
we  have  only  an  '  earnest '  of  the  life  that  shall  be.     A 
'  spiritual  body,'  not  of  flesh  and  blood,  is  prepared  for  us, 
and  at  death  we  shall  be  '  changed  ' ;    '  this  mortal  shall 
put  on  immortality,'  a  kind  of  clothing  of  the  Soul,  now 
become  Spirit,  conformable  to  the  conditions  of  purely 
spiritual  existence.     There  is  here,  no  doubt,  an  attempt 
to  combine  Greek  and  Jewish  conceptions  which  a  strict 
philosopher  might  find  inconsistent.     Salvation  is  elevation 
to  a  higher  state  of  being,  exalted  above  time  ;    and  yet 
it  is  future.     Apocalyptism  is  not  explicitly  abandoned 
or    even   consciously   repudiated.     But   for   the   religious 
consciousness  I  do  not  think  that  the  futurity  of  salvation 
can  be  discarded,  even  when  we  lay  most  stress  on  eternal 
life  as  opposed  to  survival.     We  must  remember,  what 
even  philosophers  of  the  school  of  Plato  sometimes  forget, 
that  the  mere  substitution  of  simultaneity  for  succession 
does  not  effect  the  desired  change  from  a  quantitative 
to  a  qualitative  conception  of  eternal  life  or  immortality, 
and  that  nothing  is  gained  by  getting  rid  of  the  idea  of 
flux  merely  to  substitute  for  it  the  idea  of  immobility. 
The  subject  is  very  difficult.     We  are  conscious  of  con- 
taminating  our   thoughts   of   eternity   with   ideas   which 
belong  only  to  time.     But  time  has  its  values — those  which 
belong  to  the  activities  of  the  Will;    and  in  attempting 
to  banish  all  ideas  of  futurity  and  succession  from  our 
conceptions  of  eternity  we  are  in  great  danger  of  losing 
those  values,  which  are  of  the  highest  importance  to  us 
while  we  are  here  on  our  probation.     At  any  rate,  Christian 
eschatology  has  remained  very  much  where  St.  Paul  left  it. 
The   Johannine   writings   may  be   called   an  inspired 
interpretation  of  the  Person  and  significance  of  Christ, 
addressed  to  the   third   generation   of  Christians.     They 
are  the  best  commentary  on  St.  Paul's  Epistles,    which 
they  presuppose ;    they  carry  the  theology  of  St.   Paul 
to  its  logical  conclusions.     The  Pauline  Churches  needed 


'  CONFESSIO  FIDEI '  41 

a  Gospel,  partly  because  they  were  threatened  with  a 
'  Gnostic  '  theosophy  which  encouraged  mysticism  without 
morality  and  virtually  cut  Christianity  loose  from  the 
historical  ministry  of  Christ,  and  partly  because  the 
existing  Gospels  (our  Synoptics  and  others)  taught  an 
a^o^eosw-Christology,  whereas  the  Pauline  Churches  had 
learnt  an  mcarwa^ow-Christology.  So  the  unknown  Fourth 
Evangelist  stepped  into  the  breach,  and  gave  us  a  Gospel 
according  to  Paul,  but  enriched  by  a  sublimely  idealised — 
which  does  not  at  all  mean  an  untrue — portrait  of  the 
Divine  Founder.  The  doctrine,  especially  of  the  Prologue, 
undoubtedly  owes  something  to  Philo.;  but  it  has  lately 
been  shown,  by  Dr.  Kendel  Harris,  that  the  conception 
of  Christ  as  the  Wisdom  of  God  (Kochma,  not  Memra) 
was  very  early,  leaving  traces  in  the  Synoptics  and  in  St. 
Paul,  and  that  the  Johannine  Logos  has  the  attributes 
of  the  Divine  Wisdom,  perhaps  more  than  those  of  the 
Stoical  Logos,  though  St.  John  prefers  the  latter  name, 
partly  perhaps  because  Wisdom  is  feminine  in  Greek. 
But  here  our  business  is  with  the  eschatology  of  the 
Evangelist. 

The  phrase  '  eternal  life,'  which  in  this  Gospel  takes 
the  place  of  the  Synoptic  '  kingdom  of  God,'  occurs  seven- 
teen times  in  the  Gospel,  and  six  times  in  the  First  Epistle. 
Nowhere  is  there  any  emphasis  on  the  adjective  '  eternal ' ; 
life  in  the  Johannine  sense  is  necessarily  eternal.  We 
must  not  then  neglect  the  passages  where  '  life  '  is  used 
without  the  adjective ;  they  will  throw  light  on  '  eternal 
life  '  as  conceived  by  the  Evangelist. 

Christ  in  the  Synoptics  frequently  uses  Life  in  a  religious 
sense  ;  e.g.  '  a  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the  abundance 
of  the  things  which  he  possesseth.'  '  Narrow  is  the  way 
that  leadeth  unto  life.'  The  Greek  word  is  £OJT/,  which 
in  the  New  Testament  has  a  higher  sense  than  /3tos,  contrary 
to  classical  usage.  In  2  Timothy  we  have  fj  OI/TW?  £WT) — 
'  life  that  is  life  indeed.'  Sometimes  in  the  Synoptics 
Christ  strengthens  £0077  by  aiwi/ios,  which  means  neither 
exactly  '  never-ending '  nor  '  lasting  for  a  long  time,' 
but  '  belonging  to  the  eternal  world ' ;  cuwv,  which  the 
Greeks  derived  from  TO  del  ov,  is  the  reular  word  for 


42  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

eternity  as  opposed  to  time.  I  do  not  know  what  Aramaic 
word  Christ  probably  used  instead  of  cu'wyios ;  but  I  am 
sure  that  the  popular  attempts  to  water  down  the  meaning 
of  the  Greek  word  when  applied  to  punishment  hereafter 
are  unscholarly. 

In  many  places,  '  life '  in  our  version  represents  not 
far)  but  t/'ux7?'  which  means  the  individual  life — the  nearest 
equivalent  of  '  the  Ego.'  Our  translators  have  not  dared 
to  translate  '  he  that  wishes  to  save  his  soul  shall  lose 
it ' ;  they  have  thus  weakened  one  of  the  great  texts  of 
the  Gospel,  which  means  a  real  surrender  of  the  Ego,  not 
a  mere  willingness  to  face  death.  The  soul  has  to  die  as 
Soul  in  order  to  live  as  Spirit. 

There  is  not  really  much  change  in  St.  John  as  compared 
with  St.  Paul.  But  as  compared  with  the  Synoptics  we 
find,  as  Professor  Bacon  says, 

a  complete  transfer  of  the  emphasis  away  from  the  expected 
judgment  of  the  apocalyptic  Lype  at  the  end  of  the  world,  de- 
scribed in  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  back  to  a  judgment  already 
executed  in  principle  by  the  coming  of  Jesus  and  the  Spirit ; 
it  necessitated  a  complete  recast  of  the  traditional  teaching. 
Hence  a  spiritual  Gospel  to  teach  the  last  things  from  a 
rationalised  point  of  view  was  needed  just  as  urgently  as  one 
to  teach  the  first  things  from  the  view-point  of  Christ's  pre- 
existence  as  the  creative  and  redemptive  Wisdom  of  God.  These 
two  restatements  were  indispensable  wherever  Paulinism  stood 
confronted  by  Greek  thought. 

In  St.  John,  life  as  a  present  possession  is  strongly 
emphasised,  and  the  whole  idea  of  a  reign  of  the  saints 
on  earth  has  disappeared.  The  most  significant  passages 
in  which  life,  as  eternal  life,  is  spoken  of  as  a  present 
possession  are — v.  24-25  :  '  He  that  heareth  my  word  and 
believeth  on  him  that  sent  me  hath  eternal  life,  and  shall 
not  come  into  condemnation,  but  is  passed  from  death 
unto  life.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  The  hour  is 
coming,  and  now  is,  when  the  dead  shall  hear  the  voice 
of  the  Son  of  God;  and  they  that  hear  shall  live.'  (Here 
the  symbolical  meaning  of  '  dead '  is  plain.)  vi.  47  : 
'  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  he  that  believeth  on  me 
hath  everlasting  life.'  vi.  54  :  '  Whoso  eateth  my  flesh  and 


'CONFESSIO  FIDEI/  43 

drinketh  my  blood  hath  eternal  life,  and  I  will  raise  him 
up  at  the  last  day.'  (Here  we  have  a  most  curious  com- 
bination of  the  spiritual  and  the  traditional  doctrine. 
In  the  Lazarus  story  Jesus  corrects  Martha's  words,  '  I  know 
that  he  shall  rise  again  in  the  resurrection  at  the  last  day/ 
by  replying,  '  I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life.')  1  John 
iii.  14  :  '  We  know  that  we.  have  passed  from  death  unto 
life,  because  we  love  the  brethren.'  1  John  v.  11-12  : 
'  God  hath  given  unto  us  eternal  life,  and  this  life  is  in 
his  Son.'  To  which  should  be  added  the  remarkable  words 
in  John  xvii.  3  :  '  This  is  life  eternal,  that  they  should  know 
thee,  the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  thou  hast 
sent.' 

'  In  considering  these  phrases '  (says  Westcott), '  we  must 
premise  that  in  spiritual  things  we  must  guard  against 
all  conclusions  which  rest  upon  the  notions  of  succession  and 
duration.  Eternal  life  is  not  an  endless  succession  of 
being  in  time,  but  being  of  which  time  is  not  a  measure. 
We  have  no  powers  to  grasp  the  idea  except  through 
forms  and  images  of  sense.  But  we  must  not  transfer 
them  as  realities  to  another  order.' 

To  sum  up  :  in  this  Gospel,  as  von  Hugel  says,  the  Way, 
the  Truth,  and  the  Life  are  an  ascending  scale  of  values,  and 
'  I  am  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life  '  is  the  inner  meaning 
of  the  raising  of  Lazarus,  the  last  of  the  seven  great  miracle- 
symbols  of  the  Gospel  of  Eternal  Life.  '  For  its  possessor's 
consciousness,  such  Life  means  beatitude  :  "  that  they 
may  have  life,  and  have  it  abundantly."  In  its  ethical 
relation,  it  is  the  immediate  concomitant  of  all  acts  pleasing 
to  God:  "His  commandment  is  eternal  life."  And  with 
respect  to  knowing,  it  is  enlightenment :  "  this  is  eternal 
life,  that  they  may  know  Thee,  the  only  true  God,  and 
Jesus  Christ." 

It  would  be  impossible  here  to  trace  the  influence  of 
the  Johannine  conception  of  eternal  life  in  later  Christian 
theology.  Augustine  says  :  '  Thou,  0  God,  precedest  all 
past  times  by  the  height  of  Thy  ever-present  eternity, 
and  Thou  exceedest  all  future  times,  since  these  are  future 
and  when  they  have  come  will  be  past.  Thy  years  neither 
come  nor  go,  but  these  years  of  ours  both  come  and  go, 


44  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

that  so  they  may  all  come.  All  Thy  years  abide  together, 
because  they  abide ;  but  our  years  will  be  only  when  they 
have  ceased  to  be.  Thy  years  are  but  one  day,  and  this 
Thy  day  is  not  every  day,  but  to-day.  This  Thy  to-day  is 
eternity.'  Again,  '  True  eternity  is  present  where  there 
is  nothing  of  time.'  Again,  speaking  of  a  moment  of 
vision  :  '  If  that  our  touch,  by  rapidly  passing  thought,  of 
the  eternal  Wisdom  which  abideth  above  all  things,  were 
to  be  continued,  so  that  eternal  life  would  be  like  that 
moment  of  intelligence,  would  not  that  be  the  meaning  of 
the  words,  "  Enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord  "  ?  ' 

The  medieval  Schoolmen,  recognising  the  unbridged 
gulf  between  time  and  eternity,  intercalated  between  them 
the  conception  of  perpetuity  (aevum),  which  '  participates 
in  each.'  Our  tripartite  nature  lives  in  all  three  :  our 
physical  life  in  time,  our  psychical  life  in  aevum,  our 
spiritual  life  in  eternity.  The  creation  is  perpetual,  but 
not  eternal.  As  Eckhart  says  :  '  Temporal  becoming  ends 
in  eternal  unbecoming ;  eternal  becoming  has  neither 
beginning  nor  ending.' 

Eternal  life,  for  all  these  thinkers,  is  the  atmosphere 
which  we  breathe  when  we  are  above  our  normal  selves. 
We  surround  ourselves  with  a  world  after  our  own  like- 
ness ;  we  are  what  we  love.  As  Spinoza  says  : 

The  things  which  are  for  the  most  part  considered  among 
men  as  the  highest  good  are  reducible  to  three  :  riches,  honour, 
sensual  pleasure.  By  these  the  mind  is  distracted,  so  that  it 
can  think  of  no  other  good.  Happiness  or  unhappiness  resides 
alone  in  the  quality  of  the  object  which  we  love.  Sadness, 
envy,  fear,  and  hate  occur  in  the  love  of  perishable  things.  But 
the  love  of  what  is  eternal  and  infinite  feeds  the  soul  with  joy 
alone. 

In  these  thoughts  we  breathe  a  more  rarefied  but  far 
more  bracing  air  than  in  the  picture-book  theology  of 
popular  religion.  And  as  for  the  pitiful  fancies  of  our 
modern  necromancers,  it  seems  a  shame  even  to  speak 
of  them  in  such  a  connexion.  In  them  we  see  in  part 
the  rebound  against  the  tyranny  of  nineteenth-century 
materialism — an  assertion,  however  misguided,  of  the 


'CONFESSIO  FIDEI'  45 

right  of  the  will  and  affections  to  make  themselves  heard 
in  any  discussion  of  the  ultimate  values  ;  in  part  the 
pathetic  longing  of  the  bereaved  to  realise  the  continued 
existence  of  those  whom  they  have  loved  and  lost ;  and 
in  part  a  revolt  against  a  secularised  religion  which  has 
practically  confined  our  hopes  in  Christ  to  this  life.  The 
remedy  is  to  offer  a  more  worthy  conception  of  human 
immortality. 

The  right  to  speak  about  the  eternal  values — the  right 
even  to  believe  in  them — must  be  earned  by  strict  self- 
discipline.  '  If  anyone  is  willing  to  do  His  will,  he  shall 
know  of  the  doctrine.'  '  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart, 
for  they  shall  see  God.'  In  proportion  as  we  acclimatise 
ourselves  to  the  pure  and  fine  air  of  the  spiritual  world, 
the  difficulties  and  puzzles  of  popular  eschatology  fade 
away  into  comparative  insignificance. 

fSo  far  I  have  kept  almost  entirely  to  that  philosophy 
of  religion  which  is  common  to  PLatonism  and  Christianity. 
I  make  no  apology  for  thus  emphasising  the  debt  of  the 
Christian  Church  to  its  '  old  loving  nurse,  the  Platonick 
philosophy.'  That  precious  link  with  the  maturest 
wisdom  of  antiquity  can  never  be  broken  without  tearing 
Christianity  itself  to  pieces.  But,  as  St.  Augustine  rightly 
discerned,  there  comes  a  point  where  our  non-Christian 
guides  can  conduct  us  no  farther.  The  great  Bishop  of 
Hippo  had  learned  from  the  Platonists  the  meaning  of 
'  God  is  Spirit,'  a  doctrine  which  many  Christians  of  his 
time  did  not  understand,  and  which  many  do  not  under- 
stand to-day.  But  that  'the  All-Great  is  the  All -Loving 
too,'  he  could  not  learn  from  the  sages  of  Hellenism. 
'  The  Word  made  flesh — that  I  found  not  among  them,' 
he  says.  And  so,  after  due  deliberation,  he  threw  in  his 
lot  with  the  Christian  Church,  which  had  already  assimilated 
the  spiritual  philosophy  of  Platonism,  as  well  as  the  moral 
discipline  which  the  later  Platonists  had  taken  over  from 
the  Stoics.  From  this  time,  though  much  that  was  noble 
attached  itself  a  little  longer  to  the  decaying  cause  of 
Paganism,  which  clung  to  the  name  of  Hellenism,  the 
Church  became  the  living  heir  of  the  great  Greek  tradition. 


46  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

The  question  which  Augustine  thus  decided  for  himself 
is  not  yet  closed.  Can  a  Platonist  be  a  Christian  without 
renouncing  the  philosophy  which  he  has  found  satisfying, 
both  as  an  interpretation  of  the  universe  as  it  reveals 
itself  to  human  experience,  and  as  a  rule  of  life,  a  path 
of  ascent  up  the  hill  of  the  Lord  ?  I  believe  that  not  only 
is  it  possible,  but  that  the  Christian  revelation  puts  the 
keystone  in  the  arch,  and  completes  what  the  long  travail 
of  the  human  spirit,  during  many  centuries  of  free  and 
unfettered  thought,  had  discovered  about  the  nature  of 
the  world  in  which  we  live,  the  laws  of  God  and  the  whole 
duty  of  man. 

The  Incarnation  and  the  Cross  are  the  central  doctrines 
of  Christianity.  The  Divine  Logos,  through  Whom  the 
worlds  were  made  and  Who  sustains  them  in  being,  is  not 
exhausted  in  His  creation,  but  remains  transcendent  as 
well  as  immanent  in  it.  In  the  world  He  manifests  Him- 
self as  the  source  of  those  supreme  values  which  we  have 
mentioned — as  vital  Law  in  the  course  of  nature,  the 
directing  Wisdom  celebrated  in  the  later  Jewish  literature  ; 
as  Beauty,  everywhere ;  and  as  Love.  Love  is  a  personal 
thing,  called  out  by  persons,  and  exercised  by  persons. 
'  We  love  God  because  He  first  loved  us.'  Neither  natural 
law  nor  the  beauty  of  the  world  suffices  to  manifest  or 
call  forth  the  love  which  binds  together  man  and  his 
Creator.  Nor  would  any  display  of  almighty  power  for 
our  sakes  evoke  it.  So  far  as  I  can  see,  nothing  but  a 
personal  Incarnation,  and  the  self-sacrifice  of  the  Incarnate, 
could  either  adequately  reveal  the  love  of  God  for  man, 
or  call  forth  the  love  of  man  to  God.  No  doubt  the 
Incarnation  is  also  a  revelation  of  universal  spiritual  law. 
The  '  whole  process  of  Christ '  is  and  was  meant  to  be 
a  dramatic  representation  of  the  normal  progress  of  the 
soul.  So  St.  Paul  felt  it  to  be.  As  Christ  died  and  rose 
again,  so  we,  as  members  of  His  mystical  body,  are  to 
die  to  our  old  selves,  and  to  rise  again  clothed  with  '  the 
new  man,  which  after  God  is  created  in  righteousness 
and  true  holiness.'  This  being  the  law  of  redemption,  it 
might  be  supposed  that  the  revelation  could  be  made  to 
the  human  spirit  as  a  discovery,  and  that  a  personal, 


1 CONFESSIO  FIDEI '  47 

objective  Incarnation  was  unnecessary.  But  it  does  not 
seem  to  me  that  any  diffused,  impersonal  revelation  could 
take  the  place  of  the  Word  made  flesh  and  tabernacling 
among  us.  Such  a  revelation  would  merely  mark  a  new 
stage  in  the  growth  of  racial  experience,  a  fuller  under- 
standing of  life  and  its  meaning ;  it  would  not  give  us  an 
assurance  that  God  is  Love,  nor  would  it  reveal  the  supreme 
law  of  gain  through  pain,  of  victory  through  defeat — the 
offence  and  the  glory  of  the  Cross.  "We  needed  a  demon- 
stration that  in  spiritual  creation,  as  in  physical  creation, 
birth  comes  through  travail  pangs.  The  Cross,  as  I 
understand  it,  is  not  so  much  an  atonement  for  the  past 
as  the  opening  of  a  gate  into  the  future.  Plato  had 
already  divined  that  '  we  cannot  get  rid  of  evil  without 
suffering  ' ;  but  vicarious  suffering — the  suffering  of  the 
sinless  for  the  sinful — remained  a  stumbling-block  for  the 
non-Christian  world  ;  and  it  is  only  in  this  doctrine  that 
the  sting  of  the  world's  sorrow  and  injustice  is  really 
drawn.  Redemption  means  admission  to  redemptive  work  > 
and  our  redemptive  work  is  accomplished  not  only  by 
what  we  do  ;  we  are  also  called  to  '  fill  up,  on  our  part, 
what  was  lacking  in  the  afflictions  of  Christ,  for  His  body's 
sake.' 

That  life  in  possession  of  the  eternal  values  must 
needs  be  free  from  suffering  was  the  doctrine  of  Greece 
and  of  India.  That  the  perfect  life  can  and  must  suffer 
pain  without  impairing  its  fruition  of  the  beatific  vision 
is  the  doctrine  of  Christianity.  It  is  true  ;  whereas  the 
other  doctrine  requires  an  unnatural  detachment  from 
our  environment,  and  an  inhibition  of  the  emotion  of 
pity,  to  make  it  true.  Such  an  ideal  can  be  realised,  if 
at  all,  only  in  isolation  ;  and  here  we  are  confronted  by 
one  of  the  paradoxes,  not  to  say  contradictions,  of  Stoicism, 
which  proclaimed  the  possibility  of  complete  inner  inde- 
pendence and  invulnerability,  while  insisting  on  human 
brotherhood  and  the  obligation  of  social  service.  The 
unemotional  benevolence  of  Stoicism  or  Puritanism  is  not 
only  unattractive  and  therefore  ineffective,  but  it  is  far 
more  difficult  to  practise  than  the  Christian  charity  which 
is  based  on  sympathy.  Seneca  says  that  only  weak  eyes 


48  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

water  at  the  misfortunes  of  others ;  St.  Paul  would  have 
us  weep  with  them  that  weep.  Fellow-feeling,  which 
involves  the  acceptance  of  alien  griefs  as  if  they  were 
our  own,  is  part  of  our  lot  as  members  one  of  another  ; 
Christianity  welcomes  and  consecrates  this  relationship, 
which  Stoicism,  for  all  its  nobility,  leaves  external  to  the 
man  himself.  And  with  this  renunciation  of  self-sufficiency 
goes  the  cult  of  complete  detachment  from  our  environ- 
ment, which  in  the  scheme  of  the  Asiatic  sage  often  turns 
the  dying  life  into  something  like  a  living  death.  The 
Christian  life  demands  more  faith  and  courage.  It  offers 
no  promise  of  invulnerability,  and  no  immunity  from 
temptation.  The  difficulties  of  leading  a  life  unspotted 
by  the  world,  without  flight  from  it,  are  surmounted  by 
a  creed  which  makes  love  tho  great  purifier  of  motives, 
and  the  crown  of  all  virtue.  The  Incarnation  gives  a 
definite  answer  to  the  question  which  the  philosophy  of 
the  time  often  debated,  whether  the  soul  was  free  from 
guilt  in  choosing  to  animate  an  earthly  body,  or  whether 
perhaps  it  is  expiating  its  sins  in  an  earlier  life  by  being 
condemned  to  live  for  a  time  in  this  vale  of  tears.  If  a 
Divine  Being  chose  to  become  incarnate  for  the  sake  of 
sinners,  it  is  impossible  to  regard  our  earthly  lives  either 
as  an  unworthy  choice  or  as  a  punishment.  They  are 
rather  the  means  by  which  Divine  love  may  be  brought 
down  into  an  imperfect  world,  as  the  rest  of  nature  is 
the  means  by  which  the  wisdom  and  beauty  of  the  Divine 
mind  are  made  manifest.  The  whole  of  creation,  and  not 
only  humanity,  is,  in  a  sense,  '  ennobled  and  glorified  '  by 
this  self-surrender  of  Him  who  brought  it  into  being. 

The  Incarnation,  rightly  understood,  implies  a  very  com- 
plete '  transvaluation  of  all  values.'  It  gives  a  keener  edge 
even  to  the  Beatitudes.  The  Divine  life,  under  human 
conditions,  was  the  life  that  ended  on  the  Cross.  And 
it  is  worth  while  to  remind  ourselves  that  what  is  best  for 
us  is  best  also  for  others.  The  Church  at  present  suffers 
as  much  from  the  vicarious  hedonism  of  its  social  ethics 
as  from  the  self-indulgence  and  greed  of  some  among 
its  unworthy  adherents.  Both  are  equally  materialistic; 
both  alike  rest  on  an  estimate  of  good  and  evil  which  makes 


'  CONFESSIO  FIDEI '  49 

the  Incarnation  unintelligible.  '  If  Thou  be  the  Son  of 
God,  command  that  these  stones  be  made  bread.'  Why, 
we  may  ask,  did  Christ  reject  this  as  a  temptation  of 
the  devil  ?  Was  it  only  because  the  bread  would  have 
been  for  His  own  consumption  ?  I  think  not.  Popular 
Christianity  says  in  effect,  '  Keep  your  values  unchanged, 
but  redistribute  them.'  The  deepest  meaning:  of  the 
Incarnation  is  very  different  from  this. 

That  the  Incarnation  should  have  taken  the  form  of  a 
human  life  lived  under  ordinary  conditions  causes  me 
no  difficulty.  A  perfect  human  character,  with  human 
limitations,  is  the  only  possible  form  of  an  Incarnation  for 
the  benefit  of  mankind.  Nothing  would  have  been  added, 
and  much  would  have  been  lost,  if  the  Incarnate  had  been 
invested  with  the  trappings  of  earthly  power,  or  with 
superhuman  majesty  and  beauty  of  person.  Still  less,  in 
my  opinion,  ought  we  to  demand  that  He  should  break 
through  the  fixed  laws  of  nature,  which  He  Himself 
ordained,  and  in  accordance  with  which  He  orders  the. 
course  of  the  world.  In  so  doing,  He  would  not  have 
exalted  Himself  ;  He  would  have  condemned  His  own 
creation. 

The  controversy  about  the  Divinity  of  Christ  has  in 
fact  been  habitually  conducted  on  wrong  lines.  We  assume 
that  we  know  what  the  attributes  of  God  are,  and  we 
collect  them  from  any  sources  rather  than  from  the  revela- 
tion of  God  in  Christ.  We  maintain  that,  in  spite  of  His 
voluntary  humiliation,  Christ  possessed  all  the  attributes 
of  the  unlimited  Sultan  of  the  universe  before  whom  other 
creeds  are  willing  to  do  homage.  But  surely  Christ  came 
to  earth  to  reveal  to  us,  not  that  He  was  like  God,  but  that 
God  was  like  Himself.  The  question  which  we  ought  to 
ask  is,  '  Since  Christ  is  God,  what  may  we  infer  about  the 
nature  of  God  ?  ('  I  am  not  assuming  that  such  sayings 
as  '  I  and  my  Father  are  one  '  are  certainly  historical. 
It  is  enough  that  He  spoke  and  acted  as  one  fully  possessed 
by  the  Spirit  of  God  the  Father.  To  believe  in  the  Divinity 
of  Christ  is  to  believe  that  in  the  human  Jesus  dwelt 
all  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  under  bodily  conditions. 
And  if,  as  we  know,  this  meant  the  Cross,  the  inference  is 


60  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

that,  as  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  Diognetus  says,  '  force 
is  not  an  attribute  of  God.' 

Traditional  Christianity  has  insisted  that  this  revela- 
tion was  accompanied  by  certain  unique  miracles  at  the 
beginning  and  end  of  our  Lord's  earthly  career,  and  by  a 
series  of  manifestations  of  superhuman  power  during  its 
course  which,  as  was  believed  till  lately,  were  by  no  means 
unique,  since  many  miracles  of  the  same  kind  have  been 
reported  of  others  who  never  claimed  Divine  powers.     Those 
who  believe,  as  we  do,  that  Christ  was  a  Divine  and  unique 
Being,  will  certainly  not  be  guilty  of  the  presumption  of 
denying  that  the  circumstances  of  His  birth  into  the  world 
and  of  His  withdrawal  in  bodily  presence  from  it,  may  well 
have  been  also  unique.     But  we  have,  I  think,  the  right 
to  maintain  that  the  question   as   to   the  historicity  of 
the  miracles  in  the  Gospels  and  Creeds  is  a  scientific  and 
not  a  religious  question.     Those  who  think  otherwise  can 
hardly  have  asked  themselves  what  these  miracles,  sup- 
posing them  to  be  fully  established,  actually  prove.     A 
dramatic  vindication  of  God's  omnipotence  in  the  world 
of  phenomena  was  precisely  what  the  contemporaries  of 
Christ  desired  to  see,  and  it  was  precisely  what  He  did 
not  come  to  earth  to  provide.     '  A  wicked  and  adulterous 
generation  seeketh  after  a  sign.      Verily  I  say  unto  you, 
there  shall   no  sign  be  given  to  this  generation.'     The 
question  of  miracles  seems  to  be  part  of  the  question  as  to 
the  power  of  mind  over  matter,  on  which  the  last  word 
has  certainly  not  been  said.     It  is  a  scientific  and  not  a 
religious  question,  and  it  has  no  bearing  on  the  Divinity 
of  Christ.     The  living  Christ  is  '  a   quickening  Spirit '  ; 
conversio  fit  ad  Dominum   ut   Spiritum,  as  Bengel  said. 
In  no  part  of  the  New  Testament  are  we  encouraged  to 
distinguish  sharply  between  the  glorified  Christ  and  the 
Holy  Spirit.     '  The  Lord  is  the  Spirit,'  as  St.  Paul  says. 
To  make  our  belief  in  Christ  as  a  living  and  life-giving  Spirit 
depend  on  any  abnormal  occurrences  in  the  physical  world 
seems  to  me  to  be  an  undetected  residue  of  materialism  ; 
and  if  such  occurrences  are  prized  as  proving  that  God 
can  '  do  something '  in  the  natural  order,  those  who  so 
prize  them  [seem   to  [me,   as   I   have   said,  to   confound 


'  CONFESSIO  FIDEI '  51 

one  system  of  values  and  to  degrade  another.  So  much 
I  have  thought  it  right  to  say  in  my  Confessio  Fidei.  Let 
these  problems  be  handled  with  all  reverence  and  caution  ; 
but  do  not  let  us  base  on  controvertible  grounds  a  faith 
which  stands  on  its  own  sure  foundation. 

I  am  well  aware  that  there  is  a  school  of  advanced 
critics  who  will  accuse  me  of  doing  here  exactly  what  I 
deprecate.  I  have  made  the  weight  of  my  theological 
position  rest  on  a  certain  conviction  about  the  historical 
Jesus — namely,  that  He  was  the  Incarnate  Word  or  Logos 
of  God,  a  perfect  revelation  of  the  mind  and  character 
of  God  the  Father.  This  belief,  they  say,  is  so  improbable 
that  it  ought  not  to  be  held  without  overwhelming  proofs, 
which  are  not  forthcoming.  They  have  drawn  their 
own  picture  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  on  the  assumption  that 
He  was  merely  a  religious  leader  in  Palestine  at  the  time 
of  Tiberius  ;  and  they  have  asked  themselves  what  kind 
of  persons  actually  exercised  this  kind  of  influence  at  this 
time.  Being  for  the  most  part  actuated  by  a  dislike  of 
Liberal  Protestantism,  which  they  regard  as  the  religion 
of  the  hated  Germans,  they  have  taken  a  positive  pleasure 
in  stripping  the  figure  of  Jesus  of  all  the  attributes  with 
which  the  devotion  of  centuries  has  invested  it,  and  have 
left  us  with  a  mild  specimen  of  the  Mahdi  type,  an 
apocalyptic  dreamer  whose  message  consisted  essentially 
of  predictions  about  the  approaching  catastrophic  '  end 
of  the  age,'  predictions  which  of  course  came  to  nothing. 
I  have  dealt  at  length  with  the  position  of  this  school  of 
theology  in  my  former  volume  of  essays.  Its  protagonist, 
Alfred  Loisy,  has  shown  himself  not  only  a  brilliant  con- 
troversialist, but  a  very  acute  critic  ;  though  his  last 
commentary,  on  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  is  disfigured  by  an 
extravagant  scepticism  which  refuses  to  accept  any  state- 
ment as  true  when  a  possible  motive  for  lying  may  be 
conjectured.  This  brilliant  Frenchman  has  now  com- 
pletely severed  his  connexion  with  the  Catholic  Church  ; 
but  some  of  his  disciples  still  claim  their  right  to  remain 
ministers  of  the  Gospel,  and  two  of  them,  Anglo-Americans 
and  priests  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  have  recently  written 
a  history  of  the  Christian  origins  from  this  point  of  view. 


52  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

Like  Loisy  himself,  they  speak  with  scorn  of  Liberal 
theology,  and  wish,  apparently,  to  commend  Christianity 
as  a  mystery  religion  of  the  same  type  as  the  Hellenistic 
cults  which  were  its  rivals,  and  with  which  the  Catholic 
Church  of  the  third  and  fourth  centuries  refused  to  make 
any  terms  whatever. 

If  the  historical  evidence  favoured  this  view,  I  hope  I 
should  not  reject  it  from  mere  prejudice.  But  the  whole 
theory  seems  to  me  quite  perverse.  The  Jesus  whom  they 
draw  is  a  psychological  monster,  a  person  who  could  never 
have  existed,  still  less  havo  founded  a  great  religion.  The 
teaching  of  St.  Paul  is  also  distorted  beyond  recognition 
by  these  writers.  There  is  not  a  trace  in  his  epistles  of 
the  superstitious  and  unethical  sacramentalism  which  they 
try  to  find  there.  St.  Paul's  personal  religion  was  a 
Christ-mysticism  based  on  individual  experience,  and 
working  from  within  outwards,  as  genuine  Christianity 
always  does,  to  inspire  his  devotion  to  the  Church  as  the 
body  of  Christ,  and  his  reverence  for  the  two  great  sacra- 
ments in  which  the  Church  realises  its  corporate  unity 
with  its  Lord.  To  suppose  that  St.  Paul,  a  Jew  and  a 
Pharisee,  worshipped  Christ '  the  Lord '  as  the  Alexandrians 
worshipped  '  our  Lord  Sarapis  '  is  really  absurd.  Fortun- 
ately, we  know  more  about  St.  Paul  than  about  any  other 
great  man  of  antiquity  except  Cicero,  and  he  has  left  no 
room  to  doubt  what  he  meant  by  '  serving  the  Lord  Christ.' 

Christianity  in  history  is  certainly  a  syncretistic  religion. 
I  have  tried  to  prove,  in  my  contribution  to  '  The  Legacy 
of  Greece,'  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  the  living  heir  of 
Hellenism.  But  none  the  less,  its  foundation  is  the 
historical  Christ,  whose  life  and  teaching  show  no  obliga- 
tions to  Greek  culture.  And  whenever  Christianity  has 
renewed  the  glowing  vitality  of  its  golden  age,  the  revival 
has  always  been  a  return  to  the  Christ  of  the  Synoptic 
Gospels,  from  whom,  in  the  words  of  the  Fourth  Evangelist, 
rivers  of  living  water  flow  in  an  inexhaustible  stream. 

I  have  tried  to  ask  myself  what  would  be  the  effect 
upon  my  personal  faith  if  I  were  driven  to  accept  the 
interpretations  of  Loisy  and  his  followers  as  true  history 
The  figure  of  Christ  as  an  object  of  worship  would  be  gone. 


•  CONFESSIO  FIDEI  '  53 

We  could  take  no  interest  in  a  deluded  Jewish  peasant, 
who,  believing  that  the  world  was  coming  to  an  end, 
preached  only  an  Interimsethik  of  no  value  to  a  world  which 
had  thousands  of  years  before  it.  Cut  off  from  its  roots 
in  the  historical  Incarnation,  the  Church  appears  in 
Loisy's  '  L'Evangile  et  L'Eglise  '  as  a  very  human  political 
institution,  adapting  itself  adroitly  to  the  task  of  self- 
preservation,  and  perhaps  incidentally  doing  rather  more 
good  than  harm  in  the  world.  Devoted  loyalty  to  such  a 
political  organisation  is  possible,  as  history  shows ;  but 
on  the  whole  I  think  that  my  country  has  had  a  better 
record,  and  the  name  of  England  moves  me  more  than 
the  Church  without  Christ. 

What  1  should  have  left  would  be  precisely  that  religious 
philosophy  which  for  Augustine  was  the  bridge  which 
carried  him  out  of  Mamcheism  to  Christianity.  And 
of  this  I  could  say  what  Plato,  its  founder,  said  of  it. 
In  the  absence  of  some  Divine  revelation,  he  has  given 
us  a  raft  on  which  we  may  hope  to  navigate  the  stormy 
waters  of  life  in  comparative  safety.  But  the  loss  of  the 
'  Divine  Word  '  would  be  a  very  heavy  deprivation  ;  and 
if  I  felt  that  I  had  lost  it,  I  should  not  think  it  honest  to 
call  myself  any  longer  a  Christian,  or  to  remain  in  the 
Christian  ministry.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  Roman 
Church  was  quite  right  in  condemning  both  Loisy  and 
Tyrrell.  The  latter  was  less  explicit,  but  his  real  opinions 
were  probably  not  far  different  from  those  of  the  French 
critic. 

I  have  thus  made  my  position  quite  clear  about  the 
historical  element  in  Christianity.  There  is  a  great  tempta- 
tion to  take  up  a  position  well  above  high-water  mark, 
where  no  possible  discoveries  in  either  science  or  criticism 
can  disturb  us.  But  I  remember  a  sneer  of  Professor 
Huxley  against  this  kind  of  apologetic.  '  No  longer  in 
contact  with  fact  at  any  point,  the  Church  will  be  able  to 
boast  that  it  has  won  the  peace  which  no  man  can  take 
away.'  Our  religion  cannot,  I  think,  be  made  immune 
from  dependence  on  past  history.  But  happily  the  evidence 
is  not  solely  that  by  which  we  judge  other  strange  events 
reported  by  ancient  writers.  The  Christ  in  us  bears  witness 


54  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

to  the  Christ  for  us.  The  Spirit  itself  bears  witness  with  our 
spirit  that  we  are  the  children  of  God,  and  joint-heirs 
with  Christ.  And  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  bearing  this  witness, 
sets  the  stamp  of  Divinity  not  only  on  the  revelation,  but 
on  the  historical  revealer.  In  other  words,  the  voice  of 
God  within  us  speaks  in  the  tones  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 

In  conclusion  I  wish  to  say  something  about  the  nature 
bf  religious  belief  in  general.  Faith  is  an  affirmation  of 
the  undivided  personality  ;  the  will  and  affections  are 
engaged  in  it  as  well  as  the  intellect.  It  is  not  merely 
trust ;  it  is  not  merely  a  '  wager/  But  neither  is  it  purely 
an  intellectual  inference.  Its  peculiar  character  is  due 
to  the  peculiar  position  of  souls  on  their  probation,  which 
have,  as  it  were,  a  footing  in  more  worlds  than  one.  The 
author  of  the  '  Theologia  Germanica '  says  that  the  soul  of 
man  has  two  eyes,  one  of  which  looks  on  the  creature,  the 
other  on  the  Creator.  He  adds  that  we  can  only  see  with 
either  of  these  eyes  when  the  other  is  shut.  This  amounts 
to  saying  that  we  have  a  natural  squint,  which  can  be 
rectified  only  by  always  closing  one  eye.  This  seems 
to  me  to  be  the  wrong  kind  of  mysticism.  The  invisible 
things  of  God,  as  St.  Paul  tells  us  far  more  truly,  are  to  be 
understood  through  the  things  that  are  made.  But  it  is 
true  that  the  soul  knows  both  what  is  above  itself  and  what 
is  below  itself,  and  that  to  bring  these  two  sides  of  our 
knowledge  under  one  system  is  impossible.  We  cannot 
make  our  highest  intuitions  and  experiences  our  own  without 
translating  them  into  symbolical  or  mythical  forms. 
That  popular  religion  contains  a  large  mythical  element 
needs  no  demonstration.  Myth  and  cultus  seem  to  be  the 
untransparent  middle  terms  between  the  spiritual  and 
the  temporal.  They  have  only  an  instrumental  value, 
a  pragmatic  truth,  relative  to  the  position  of  each  soul  in 
the  scale  of  being.  But  I  am  afraid  that  philosophy  is 
not  in  a  much  better  case,  if  it  aspires  to  be  the  religion 
of  the  educated  man.  The  philosopher  does  not  wish  to 
make  the  world  'float  double,  swan  and  shadow,'  like 
'the  swan  on  still  St.  Mary's  Lake.'  He  does  not  wish  to 
turn  Plato's  '  intelligible  world '  into  a  replica  of  the  world 


'  CONFESSIO  FIDEI '  55 

we  know  without  its  misfits,  converting  his  idealism  into 
a  kind  of  supramundane  physics.  But  it  is  extremely 
hard  to  prevent  the  imagination  from  doing  this,  when  we 
try  to  '  ascend  in  heart  and  mind  '  to  the  philosopher's 
heaven.  I  doubt  if  any  philosophy  can  escape  this  trans- 
formation of  thoughts  into  concrete  images,  unless  indeed 
we  are  content  to  treat  metaphysics  as  a  mere  intellectual 
puzzle,  like  a  problem  in  mathematics.  Perhaps  a  superior 
being  would  not  see  any  generic  difference  between  the 
religion  of  a  philosopher  and  that  of  a  child.  The  Synoptic 
Gospels  say  that  Christ  always  taught  symbolically.  '  With- 
out a  parable  spake  He  not  unto  them/  In  truth  it  seems 
as  if,  while  we  live  here,  faith  needs  the  help  of  the  imagina- 
tion to  make  its  affirmations  real.  These  mind-pictures 
are  a  substitute  for  the  actual  vision  which  belongs  to  a 
higher  state. 

The  mystics,  like  other  people,  form  these  images,  but 
they  reject  them  one  after  another  as  unworthy.  '  God 
is  not  like  this/  they  declare,  as  soon  as  any  concrete 
image  of  Him  has  formed  itself  in  their  minds.  Their 
method  has  been  compared  to  peeling  an  onion  ;  they 
have  been  said  to  grasp  at  the  absolute,  and  to  seize  only 
zero.  They  do  not  think  so  themselves  ;  and  surely  we 
are  in  far  more  danger  from  the  heavy-handed  dogmatist 
who  wishes  to  arrest  and  stereotype  the  image-making 
faculty  at  a  very  crude  stage,  and  to  fix  it  in  the  same  state 
for  all,  without  regard  to  the  great  differences  in  tempera- 
ment and  education  which  divide  human  beings.  This 
standardising  of  religious  belief  is  the  work  of  militant 
institutionalism.  It  is  militarism  in  religion  :  it  crushes 
individuality  and  enforces  obedience  in  the  temper  of  a 
drill-sergeant.  Unless  we  accept  the  ethics  of  militarism 
we  must  confess  that  this  involves  a  shocking  indifference 
to  truth. 

The  true  religion  for  each  of  us  is  the  most  spiritual 
view  of  reality  that  we  are  able  to  realise  and  live  by. 
The  forms  are  not  and  cannot  be  the  same  for  all  ;  and 
accusations  of  infidelity  on  the  one  side,  and  of  obscuran- 
tism on  the  other,  are  out  of  place.  We  must  try  to  under- 
stand the  traditionalists,  even  when  they  wish  to  deprive 


56  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

us  of  our  own  liberty.  And  yet  we  cannot  avoid  some 
conflict  with  them,  For  religions  have  a  natural  tendency 
to  congeal  and  crystallise,  as  well  as  to  evaporate ;  and 
institutional  Christianity  has  not  kept  pace  with  the  growth 
of  human  knowledge.  The  traditional  Christian  lives, 
as  I  have  said,  in  a  pre-Copernican  universe,  and  refuses 
to  readjust  his  cosmology,  which  fits  only  into  a  geocentric 
frame.  £\  jv 

This  immobility  of  dogma  causes  other  evils  besides 
intellectual  dishonesty.  No  scientific  discovery  is  without 
its  religious  and  moral  implications.  The  new  knowledge 
imposes  upon  us  new  duties  ;  and  these  new  duties  are 
systematically  ignored  by  the  Churches,  which  even  mani- 
fest an  active  antipathy  to  them.  Two  examples,  which  are 
especially  flagrant,  will  illustrate  my  meaning. 

The  discoveries  which  are  still  rightly  associated  with 
the  name  of  Charles  Darwin  have  proved,  beyond  a  shadow 
of  doubt,  that  the  so-called  lower  animals  are  literally 
our  distant  cousins.  They  have  as  good  a  right  on  this 
planet  as  we  have ;  they  were  not  made  for  our  benefit, 
as  we  used  to  suppose.  This  discovery  has  certainly  altered 
our  way  of  regarding  them  ;  it  has  made  us  aware  of  moral 
obligations  which  were  formerly  unrecognised.  The  only 
question  is  how  far  the  recognition  of  these  obligations 
ought  to  take  us.  Some  think  that  we  ought  to  abstain 
from  animal  food  altogether.  But  the  whole  of  nature,  as  has 
been  said,  is  a  conjugation  of  the  verb  to  eat,  in  the  active 
and  passive ;  and  if  we  assume  that  survival  has  a  value 
for  the  brutes,  no  one  has  so  great  an  interest  in  the  demand 
for  pork  as  the  pig.  The  morality  of  field  sports  is  much 
more  dubious,  and  I  cannot  doubt  that  the  opinion  will 
before  long  be  generally  held,  that  to  kill  animals  for 
pleasure  is  barbarous  and  immoral.  As  for  big  game 
shooting,  the  extermination  of  rare  and  beautiful  species 
differs  from  other  crimes  in  being  absolutely  irreparable. 
Deliberate  cruelty  to  animals  happily  arouses  almost  as 
much  indignation  in  this  country  as  cruelty  to  children. 
It  is  a  spontaneous  verdict  of  the  newly  enlightened  moral 
sense,  to  which  organised  religion,  I  regret  to  say,  has 
contributed  very  little. 


'  CONFESSIO  FIDEI  '  57 

I  have  no  wish  to  make  an  attack  on  the  Church  of 
Rome  ;  but  it  happens  to  be  the  most  prominent  example 
of  a  Church  which  has  assimilated  nothing  of  scientific 
ethics.  My  own  Church  has  learned  something,  but  is 
still  lamentably  behind  the  best  lay  conscience.  During 
the  agitation  against  the  cruelties  practised  in  the  plumage 
trade,  a  lady  who  was  working  for  the  Plumage  Bill  tried 
to  enlist  the  sympathies  of  Roman  Catholics,  and  failed 
completely.  The  answer  which  she  received  was,  '  The 
lower  animals  were  made  for  our  use,  we  have  no  duties 
towards  them.'  This  is,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  the  common 
view  among  Roman  Catholics.  The  cruelties  practised 
on  animals  in  Catholic  countries  are  one  of  the  drawbacks 
to  travelling  in  the  south  of  Europe.  The  Mohammedans, 
I  am  informed;  are  much  more  humane. 

My  other  example  is  our  duty  to  posterity.  Here  again, 
new  scientific  discoveries  have  called  attention  to  the 
fact  that  we  are  largely  responsible  for  the  physical, 
intellectual,  and  moral  outfit  with  wliich  the  next  generation 
of  English  will  face  the  duties  and  difficulties  of  life.  The 
science  of  eugenics  is  still  in  its  infancy,  and  the  wisest 
students  of  it  warn  us  not  to  be  in  a  hurry  ;  but  no  one  can 
read  the  standard  books  on  Meiidelism  without  being 
convinced  that  an  instrument  has  been  put  into  our  hands 
by  which  real  racial  progress  can  be  attained  in  the  future. 
It  is  equally  certain  that  in  the  absence  of  purposive  action 
directed  towards  racial  improvement,  civilisation  itself 
will  prove  a  potent  dysgeuic  agency,  sterilising  the  best 
stocks  and  encouraging  the  multiplication  of  the  unfit. 
To  any  intelligent  lover  of  his  kind,  this  must  seem  the 
most  important  of  all  social  questions,  and  the  encourage- 
ment of  scientific  research  in  this  direction  must  seem  the 
most  hopeful  means  of  helping  forward  the  progress  of 
humanity.  The  kindred  problem  of  regulating  the  popula- 
tion so  as  to  secure  the  best  conditions  for  the  inhabitants 
of  a  country  must  also,  before  long,  engage  the  attention  of 
all  intelligent  sociologists.  But  here,  also,  the  old  morality 
is  the  great  enemy  of  the  new.  The  Roman  Catholic 
Church  is  a  bitter  and  unscrupulous  opponent  both  of 
eugenics  and  of  birth-control.  I  read  in  one  of  their  organs 


58  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

the  astounding  statement  that  '  since  posterity  does  not 
exist,  we  can,  properly  speaking,  have  no  duties  towards  it.' 
Only  those  who  have  tried  to  rouse  the  public  conscience 
on  these  questions  know  how  fierce  is  the  antagonism  of 
the  greatest  among  the  Christian  Churches  to  any  recog- 
nition of  scientific  ethics. 

The  worst  enemies  of  Christianity  are  Christians.  A 
religion  will  never  be  destroyed  by  worldliness,  sensuality, 
or  malicious  wickedness.  The  world,  the  flesh,  and  the 
devil  are  the  natural  enemies  of  the  Church,  which  thrives 
on  the  struggle  against  them.  But  when  traditional 
orthodoxy  provokes  the  moral  indignation  of  the  enlightened 
conscience,  and  when  it  outrages  our  sense  of  truth  and 
honesty  by  demanding  our  assent  to  scientific  errors  which 
were  exploded  centuries  ago,  then  indeed  the  Church  is 
in  danger,  and  its  well-disciplined  battalions  will  not 
save  it  from  disaster. 

If  ever  a  Church  alienates  from  itself  not  only  the  best 
intellect  but  the  best  conscience  of  the  nation,  so  that 
these  forces  no  longer  exert  any  pressure  upon  its  action, 
the  descent  to  Avernus  is  easy  and  the  return  very  difficult. 
Its  rulers  are  led  by  the  real  or  supposed  necessity  of 
representing  and  conciliating  a  less  and  less  respectable 
clientele,  and  the  public  ceases  to  look  for  wisdom  or 
guidance  from  the  official  spokesmen  of  the  Church.  If 
our  leaders  were  wise  in  their  generation,  they  would 
make  a  great  effort  to  check  the  progressive  alienation  of 
vigorous  and  independent  thought  from  Christianity. 
They  would  have  the  courage  to  disregard  the  prejudices 
of  the  church-going  public,  and  would  appeal  to  the  con- 
science and  intelligence  of  a  wider  circle.  The  combina- 
tion of  reactionary  theology  with  crude  revolutionary 
politics,  which  now  seems  to  be  in  favour,  will  win  them 
no  respect.  The  Labour  movement  can  provide  its  own 
hired  advocates  ;  the  business  of  the  clergy  is  to  preach 
the  Gospel  and  to  speak  the  truth.  It  is  certain  that  Christ 
never  meant  to  strew  intellectual  difficulties  of  the  kind 
with  which  we  are  familiar  in  the  path  of  His  disciples. 
He  never  required  us  to  outrage  our  scientific  conscience 
as  a  condition  of  obeying  Him.  He  bade  us  to  take  up 


'  CONFESSIO  FIDEI '  59 

our  croas  and  follow  Him  ;  but  the  burdens,  heavy  and 
grievous  to  be  borne,  which  our  traditionalists  bind  on 
the  shoulders  of  men  and  women,  are  not  only  no  part 
of  the  burden  of  the  cross  :  they  are  a  sore  hindrance  to 
many  who  wish  to  take  it  up. 

Organised  Christianity  is  at  present  under  a  cloud. 
The  Churches  have  but  little  influence,  and  if  they  had 
more  they  would  not  know  what  to  do  with  it.  But  the 
rationalistic  assumption  that  the  Christian  religion  is 
played  out  is  quite  out  of  date  and  betrays  a  complete 
absence  of  the  historical  sense.  Eeligious  institutions  are 
by  far  the  toughest  and  most  long-lived  of  all  human 
associations.  Nothing  could  destroy  the  Christian  Churches 
except  the  complete  decay  and  submergence  of  the  white 
race,  a  most  improbable  contingency.  Ages  of  belief  and 
of  unbelief  follow  each  other,  and  perhaps  both  are  wrongly 
named.  And  if  the  Churches  seem  fairly  secure,  much 
more  so  is  the  revelation  of  which  they  are  the  guardians. 
With  the  added  experience  of  nearly  two  thousand  years, 
the  modern  man  can  repeat  the  words  of  St.  Paul,  that 
'  other  foundation  can  no  man  lay  save  that  which  is 
laid,'  that  is  to  say,  '  Christ  the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  for  ever.' 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE 

(i)  THEOCRACIES 

THE  father  of  political  philosophy  taught  us  that  human 
association  began  for  the  purpose  of  self-preservation,  and 
was  developed  for  the  purpose  of  living  well.  We  may 
follow  Aristotle  and  say  that  all  settled  States  embody 
some  aspiration  to  live  well. 

From  this  point  of  view,  the  history  of  institutions  is 
the  most  pathetic  of  all  records.  Man  has  conquered  the 
wild  beasts  ;  he  has  conquered  his  fellow-men  ;  he  has 
conquered  nature ;  but  collectively  he  has  never  suc- 
ceeded in  governing  himself.  A  good  government  remains 
the  greatest  of  human  blessings,  and  no  nation  has  ever 
enjoyed  it.  There  is  no  ruler,  says  Plato,  who  would  be 
unjustly  condemned  by  his  subjects.  The  world  sways 
backwards  and  forwards  between  the  ideals  of  Order  and 
Liberty  ;  not  because  anyone  thinks  it  possible  or  desirable 
to  enjoy  either  of  those  boons  without  the  other,  but 
because,  after  a  brief  experience  of  governments  based  on 
one  of  them,  men  think  that  no  price  is  too  high  to  pay 
for  being  delivered  from  it. 

As  surfeit  is  the  father  of  much  fast, 
So  every  scope  by  the  immoderate  use 
Turns  to  restraint.     Our  natures  do  pursue, 
Like  rats  that  ravin  down  their  proper  bane, 
A  thirsty  evil ;  and  when  we  drink  we  die.1 

No  doubt  there  are  transformations  which  can  hardly 
occur  without  an  intermediary  phase.  For  example,  it 

1  Shakespeare,  Measure  for  Measure,  Act  i,  Scene  2. 
60 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE       61 

does  not  seem  possible  for  democracy,  which  disintegrates 
society  into  individuals  and  only  collects  them  again  into 
mobs,  to  pass  directly  into  its  opposite,  socialism.  A 
military  monarchy  must  come  between  them.  Russian 
autocracy,  standing  on  its  head,  is  more  of  an  autocracy 
than  ever.  The  little  finger  of  Lenin  is  thicker  than  the 
loins  of  Nicholas  the  First.  We  might  find  other  examples 
of  the  transformation  of  a  movement  into  its  opposite. 
We  may  trace  the  progress  of  unlimited  competition 
towards  a  stage  when  it  destroys  itself.  The  competing 
units,  which  began  as  individuals  acting  in  isolation, 
become  larger  and  larger  aggregates,  until  they  succeed 
in  establishing  monopolies,  which  bring  competition  to  an 
end.  Or  if  competition  is  not  terminated  in  this  way,  it 
may  end  by  exhausting  the  competitors. 

The  conditions  of  success  may  become  so  severe  that 
the  ruling  race  rules  itself  out,  and  is  displaced  by  non- 
competitive  strata  of  the  population.  This  fate  often 
befalls  warlike  and  predatory  races  ;  they  who  take  the 
sword  perish  by  the  sword.  The  wolves  disappear  ;  the 
sheep  survive.  Some  movements  disintegrate  so  rapidly  that 
they  live  only  in  the  vigorous  reactions  which  they  produce. 
This  is  true  of  all  violent  social  revolutions,  especially 
when  they  include  communistic  experiments.  Thus  the 
Jacobinism  of  the  French  Revolution,  which  looked  like 
mere  anarchism  and  bloodthirstiness,  inaugurated  the 
bourgeois  regime  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Our  present 
social  unrest  will.  I  think,  issue  in  a  division  of  the  wage- 
earners  into  a  privileged  and  an  unprivileged  section.  It 
will  broaden  the  basis  of  conservatism. 

Sometimes  the  transformation  is  of  a  more  subtle  and 
interesting  kind.  Roman  imperialism,  as  I  said  just  now, 
ended  by  destroying  the  spirit  of  nationality.  The  ruling 
race  itself  was  partly  absorbed,  but  very  largely  extinguished. 
Yet  the  empire,  though  it  decayed  as  a  fact,  survived  as  an 
idea.  It  had  a  new  and  very  remarkable  lease  of  life  in  an 
idealised  form,  as  the  Roman  Church.  So  on  a  still  larger 
scale  Jewish  nationalism  by  its  uncompromising  fanaticism 
caused  the  destruction  of  the  Holy  City  and  the  annihilation 
of  the  Jewish  State  ;  but  in  Christianity  we  may  say  with 


62  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

Seeley  that  the  Jewish  nationality  had  a  new  and  boundless 
extension.  The  civilised  world  has  adopted  Jerusalem  as 
its  spiritual  capital,  and  David  and  the  prophets  as  its 
spiritual  heroes.  What  the  Babylonians  and  Persians  and 
Greeks  and  Romans  did  for  Judaism,  by  liberating  the  idea 
from  the  mould  in  which  it  had  taken  shape  and  which 
prevented  its  expansion,  that  the  Barbarians  did  for  the 
Roman  Empire.  In  both  cases  the  idea  triumphed,  and 
in  the  form  most  unacceptable  to  its  first  custodians.  For 
the  patriotic  Jew  would  have  regarded  with  horror  the 
prospect  of  his  sacred  books  being  annexed  by  the  Gentiles 
of  the  West,  and  we  can  imagine  the  feelings  of  Trajan  or 
Tacitus  on  being  told  that  a  Christian  priest  would  rule 
a  world-wide  theocracy  from  the  Vatican.  The  ironies  of 
history  are  on  a  colossal  scale,  and  must,  one  is  tempted  to 
think,  cause  great  amusement  to  a  superhuman  spectator. 

This  chameleon-like  character  of  human  institutions, 
these  Protean  changes,  arc,  when  they  are  once  understood, 
a  considerable  obstacle  to  the  extreme  form  of  State-loyalty. 
They  do  not  affect  the  love  of  country,  for  we  may  imagine 
that  the  innermost  life  of  a  country  persists  through  all 
changes  ;  but  they  do  make  it  difficult  to  worship  a  State 
as  the  embodiment  of  a  type  of  government  which  we 
admire  ;  for  by  the  mere  fact  of  being  a  successful  example 
of  such  a  type,  it  is  preparing  the  way  for  the  triumph  of 
an  opposite  principle  which  we  probably  dislike  extremely. 
It  will  be  one  of  the  objects  of  these  lectures  to  show  that 
the  State  Visible  has  not  that  consistency  and  uniformity 
of  character  which  could  make  it  the  object  of  unqualified 
loyalty  and  devotion.  It  never  represents  any  clear  ideal, 
but  always  the  resultant  of  conflicting  interests  and  forces  ; 
or  if  one  tendency,  such  as  individual  liberty,  or  highly 
organised  discipline,  seems  for  a  time  to  have  gained  com- 
plete control,  the  suppressed  instincts  are  gathering  strength 
below  the  surface,  and  a  violent  reaction,  which  the 
temporary  success  of  the  opposite  principle  has  itself 
generated,  may  be  confidently  expected. 

It  is  a  rare  exception  when  the  authority  of  a  State 
rests  on  bare  force.  In  primitive  associations  of  men  this 
is  never  the  case.  The  primitive  community  contains 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE       63 

unseen  as  well  as  visible  members.     It  contains  gods  as 
well  as  men,  the  god  or  gods  of  tho  tribe.     Under  the  pro- 
tection of  these  unseen  rulers  are  placed  all  the  possessions 
which  the  tribe  most  values  and  most  fears  to  lose.     Above 
all,  the  gods  are  the  guardians  of  the  traditions  and  customs 
of  the  tribe.     All  societies  cohere  mainly  by  the  superin- 
cumbent weight  of  custom.     At  ordinary  times  there  is  a 
certain  mental  inertia  which  keeps  the  members  of  a  State 
marching  in  step,  and  each  innovation,  once  established, 
becomes  a  tradition,  to  be  reverenced  as  such.     It  is  only 
in  revolutionary  periods  that  we  discover  how  weak  are 
the  bonds  which  keep   society  together,  apart  from  the 
tacit  acceptance  of  custom.     When  either  reason  or  passion 
plays  upon  institutions,  they  perish.     Knowing  this,  the 
savage  consecrates  his  tribal  customs,  and  puts  them  safe 
out  of  reach  of  criticism.     The  eighteenth- century  rational- 
ists were  very  wide  of  the  mark  when  they  supposed  that 
religion  was  invented  by  priests  to  defraud  the  people. 
It  would  be  much  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  the  people 
introduced   priests   to   keep   themselves,   or   rather   their 
neighbours,  in  the  way  they  should  go.      But  primitive 
man  is  not  a  philosophic  pragmatist.     He  includes  his 
tribal  god  in  his  community  because  he  believes  in  his 
existence,  and  he  supports  the  priest  because  he  believes 
that  the  priest  can  act  as  a  mediator  between  himself  and 
the  unseen  ruler  of  his  tribe.     There  is  at  this  stage  no 
distinction  between  Church  and   State,   between  secular 
and  religious  law,  between  the  claims  of  Caesar  and  of  God. 
The  penalties  which  are  believed  to  follow  on  an  infraction 
of  the  duties  which  the  tribe  owes  to  its  unseen  Head  are 
collective  punishments  such  as  a  chief  might,  if  he  had  the 
power,  inflict  upon  rebellious  subjects  ;  and  the  satisfactions 
which  the  tribe  offers  to  earn  his  favour  or  placate  his 
wrath  are  modelled  on  the  tributes  which  the  chief  is  in  the 
habit  of  exacting. 

The  primitive  community  is  thus  in  part  a  theocracy  ; 
though  before  any  separation  of  interests  has  taken  place 
between  sacred  and  secular  authority  we  can  only  say 
correctly  that  its  government  contains  strong  theocratic 
elements.  The  supreme  authority  is  unseen,  and  there  is 


04  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

something  mysterious  about  the  way  in  which  he  makes 
his  pleasure  and  displeasure  felt.  But  he  is  on  the  whole 
the  custodian  of  tribal  custom  and  accepted  views  of  right 
and  justice,  and  may  be  appealed  to  as  the  champion  of  mos 
maiorum  against  all  unauthorised  innovations,  and  all  acts 
of  arbitrary  tyranny  by  the  visible  head  of  the  State. 

The  barbarous  community  thus  contains  the  germs  of 
theocracy  as  a  form  of  government.  In  the  history  of 
civilisation  theocracy  has  held,  and  may  hold  again,  a  very 
important  place.  It  is  one  of  the  forms  in  which  the 
Invisible  State  has  received  practical  acknowledgment  in 
framing  constitutions.  I  have  therefore  thought  it  worth 
while  to  devote  my  first  lecture  to  the  Theocratic  State, 
before  considering  its  chief  rival,  the  Greek  Commonwealth, 
whether  in  its  actual  manifestation  or  in  the  ideal  forms 
imagined  by  philosophers.  It  will  be  convenient  to  take 
the  Hebrew  State  as  our  first  example.  It  furnishes  a 
useful  parallel  to  the  Gr^ek  political  type  which  we  shall 
consider  next  in  order,  because  here  also  we  are  able  to 
examine  both  the  real  and  the  ideal  State.  The  prophets, 
with  their  Kingdom  of  God,  are  analogous  to  the  Greek 
philosophers  with  their  city  whose  type  is  laid  up  in  heaven. 

The  Israelite  nation  in  Palestine  was  a  mixture  of  nomad 
invaders  with  settled  Canaanites.  In  the  desert  the 
religion  of  the  children  of  Israel  must  have  been  very 
different' from  that  which  we  know  of 'from  their  sacred 
books.  We  are  incidentally  told  that  they  offered  no 
sacrifices  while  they  lived  as  wandering  shepherds  ;  the 
great  festivals  of  the  Law  were  agricultural  feasts,  which 
would  have  no  meaning  for  Bedouins.  Nor  can  we  think 
of  a  theocracy  before  the  political  fusion  of  the  tribes. 
Nomads  very  seldom  develop  a  true  monarchy,  and  it  was 
not  till  centuries  after  the  tribes  were  settled  in  Canaan  that 
a  kingship  was  established,  and  then,  we  are  told,  it  was 
in  imitation  of  the  foreign  kinglets  who  lived  round  about. 
According  to  the  earliest  account,  the  institution  of  the 
monarchy  was  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  God,  and  was 
carried  out  through  His  prophet  Samuel.  Later,  when  the 
power  of  the  priesthood  had  already  begun  to  come  into 
conflict  with  the  regal  authority,  the  tradition  arose  that 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE       65 

the  appointment  of  a  king  was  an  act  of  rebellion  against 
the   strict   theocracy   which   alone  had   the  approval   of 
Jehovah.     At  a  very  early  date,  signs  of  jealousy  between 
Church  and  State  began  to  show  themselves.     The  king 
was  ex-officio  general  and  judge  ;  he  was  also  ex-officio 
priest.     Saul  saw  nothing  wrong  in  offering  sacrifice  in  the 
place  of  Samuel.    David  wore  a  linen  ephod,  which  was 
a  priestly  garment.     Both  he  and  Solomon  blessed   the 
people  ;  and  David's  sons  were  priests,  as  if  by  patrimony. 
Jeroboam  also  seems  to  have  acted  as  priest.     It  is  not 
necessary  to  dwell  further  on  this  early  period,  in  which  the 
cultus  even  of  Jehovah  seems  to  have  been  more  like  the 
barbarous  rites  of  Uganda  or  parts  of  India  than  later 
Judaism.     The  theocracy  really  begins  with  the  central- 
ising policy  of  the  later  Jewish  kings,  which  was  only  made 
possible  by  the  fact  that  most  of  the  other  towns,  with  their 
local  sanctuaries,  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  Assyrians. 
Josiah  hoped  on  the  one  hand   to  make  the  Temple  an 
annexe  of  the  royal  palace,  and  so  keep  the  priesthood  as 
a  support  to  the  throne,  and  on  the  other  to  divert  to 
Jerusalem  the  gifts  of  the  faithful  which  had  gone  to  local 
shrines.     Doubtless    he    also   wished    to    put   down   the 
abominations  practised  at  many  of  these  holy  places. 

The  captivity  led  to  the  compilation,  in  the  time  of 
Ezekiel,  of  a  book  containing  the  priestly  traditions  of  the 
Temple  ritual,  and  this  codification  was  continued.  Under 
Ezra  the  whole  Pentateuch,  though  not  in  its  present  form, 
was  published.  The  nation  had  become  a  Church,  and 
the  revelation  of  the  spoken  word  had  become  the  inspira- 
tion of  a  Book.  The  Jewish  theocracy  as  we  know  it  was 
now  in  being. 

Whether  the  Church-nation  would  have  been  able  to 
withstand  the  disintegrating  influence  of  Hellenism,  if 
the  latter  had  been  left  to  pursue  its  course  of  peaceful 
penetration,  cannot  be  decided.  The  violent  persecu- 
tion of  Antiochus  Epiphanes  put  an  end  to  all  hope  of 
Hellenising  the  Palestinian  Jews,  and  fixed  them  in  their 
splendid  isolation.  The  Jews  of  the  Dispersion  might 
continue  to  imbibe  foreign  culture,  and  to  assimilate  their 
beliefs  to  those  of  the  educated  world  around  them  by 


66  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

studying  Greek  philosophy.  It  was  in  fact  this  rapproche- 
ment which  made  possible  the  spread  of  Christianity  in 
Europe  ;  for  the  Christianity  which  converted  the  world 
was  the  Christianity  of  Stephen,  Apollos,  and  Paul,  not  the 
Christianity  of  James  the  Brother  of  the  Lord.  But  the 
fiery  trial  under  the  Maccabees  fell  on  Palestine  ;  and  the 
deepest  religious  feeling  and  devotion  among  the  Jews 
were  found  among  those  who  resisted  all  compromise  to  the 
death.  More  and  more  the  theocratic  idea  realised  itself 
in  a  Jewish  Catholic  Church,  which  nevertheless  was 
unwilling  to  surrender  the  dream  of  temporal  power,  till 
in  endeavouring  to  turn  the  dream  into  fact  it  had  ruined 
the  nation  completely  in  its  local  seat.  But  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem,  and  the  annihilation  of  the  Jerusalem  hier- 
archy with  its  worship,  really  liberated  the  theocracy  from 
an  association  with  secular  politics  which  had  become  not 
only  unnecessary  but  hampering.  Judaism  without  Jerusa- 
lem became  a  State  of  an  unique  kind  ;  though  if  the  Roman 
Church  ever  renounced  its  dream  of  temporal  domination 
and  sundered  its  connexion  with  the  city  of  Rome,  it  would 
become  an  institution  of  a  somewhat  similar  nature. 
Judaism  is  a  theocratic  State  with  no  visible  symbols  of 
empire,  and  therefore  nothing  to  attack,  though  its  citizens 
may  be  and  often  are  maltreated.  Its  terms  of  membership 
are  nominally  religious,  but  are  very  largely  racial  ;  and 
the  pride  and  loyalty  which  keep  it  together  are  partly 
racial  and  partly  religious,  the  two  being  inseparable  in 
the  minds  of  its  adherents.  There  is  no  desire  to  refuse  to 
accept  citizenship  in  the  political  states  where  the  Jews 
find  their  homes,  nor  any  inclination  to  disobey  the  laws  ; 
but  their  deepest  loyalty  is  to  their  own  race,  and  they  have 
a  fixed  determination  to  escape  being  fused  in  other  nation- 
alities. This  consistent  policy,  one  of  the  most  successful 
in  history,  is  of  such  peculiar  interest  for  our  present 
purpose,  that  it  may  be  worth  while  to  illustrate  a  little 
further,  from  the  writings  of  Jews  themselves,  the  attitude 
of  the  Jewish  theocracy  towards  the  secular  governments 
under  which  its  members  live.  Mr.  Morris  Joseph,  in  bis 
book  '  Judaism  as  a  Creed  and  Life,'  thus  states  the  duties  of 
a  Jew  to  the  State.  I  give  his  statement  in  an  abridged  form. 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE       67 

Every  association  of  men  has  for  its  object  the  pro- 
motion of  common  aims.  Common  interests  have  common 
duties  as  their  correlative.  The  State  is  Society  under  its 
most  organised  form  ;  but  it  retains  the  ethical  character 
which  underlies  its  existence.  There  are  moral  obligations 
on  both  sides,  from  the  individual  to  the  State,  and  from 
the  State  to  the  individual  The  Old  Testament  prescribes 
obedience  to  alien  rule.  '  Seek  the  peace  of  the  city 
whither  I  have  caused  you  to  be  carried  away  captive/ 
says  Jeremiah  ;  '  and  pray  unto  the  Lord  for  it ;  for  in  the 
peace  thereof  ye  shall  have  peace.'  '  Serve  the  king  of 
Babylon,  and  it  shall  be  well  with  you,'  says  Gedaliah. 
The  Talmud  also  declares  that  he  who  rebels  against  his 
sovereign  deserves  to  die,  and  that  '  the  law  of  the  land  is 
law.'  Deeds  of  mercy  are  not  to  be  confined  to  Jewish 
recipients.  The  author  assures  us  that  there  is  no  '  Jewish 
vote  ' ;  the  Jews  vote  as  citizens,  not  as  Jews.  He  also 
says  that  a  Jew  has  no  right  to  refuse  to  serve  in  the  army 
or  navy,  even  though  such  service  involves  certain  breaches 
of  the  ritual  law  ;  nor  should  he  refuse  to  serve  on  a  jury 
or  to  vote  on  the  Sabbath.  Unquestionably  there  are  some 
things  in  which  the  Jew  would  think  it  his  duty  to  obey 
God  rather  than  man  ;  but  in  modern  Jewish  books,  written 
in  England,  the  stress  is  laid  on  the  moral,  not  on  the 
ceremonial.  Law  ;  and  the  chief  feature  which  distinguishes 
Jewish  from  Christian  ethics  is  the  appeal  made  to  keep  up 
the  honour  of  the  nation.  It  is  treason  to  give  occasion 
for  the  name  of  Jew  to  be  evil  spoken  of.  All  public  trans- 
gression is  a  '  profanation  of  the  Name '  of  God.  The 
Name  of  God  is  profaned  when  his  people  and  religion  are 
brought  into  contempt.  Thus  the  Jew  replies  with  a  fine 
noblesse  oblige  to  the  scorn  of  centuries. 

The  Jewish  theocratic  State  is  now  in  some  danger  of 
disintegration,  as  it  was  under  the  earlier  successors  of 
Alexander,  by  coming  into  too  friendly  relations  with  an 
alien  and  in  some  ways  a  broader  culture.  It  flourished 
best  under  persecution,  and  may  be  killed  by  kindness.  It 
will  be  very  interesting  to  see  whether  the  Jews  will  choose, 
if  they  are  given  the  opportunity,  to  rebuild  a  Temple  in 
their  Holy  City. 


68  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

Other  theocracies  may  be  passed  briefly  in  review  : 
they  will  illustrate  the  different  advantages  and  disad- 
vantages of  this  type  of  government.  The  extraordinary 
stability  of  Hinduism  has  hardly  received  sufficient  recog- 
nition from  students  of  historical  philosophy.  Just  as 
Judaism  generated  and  then  expelled  the  Christian  religion, 
which  won  such  resounding  triumphs  in  Europe  after  being, 
on  the  whole,  rejected  by  Asia,  so  India  first  generated 
and  then  expelled  one  of  the  other  great  religions  of  the 
world — Buddhism.  There  are  said  to  be  at  present  less 
than  half  a  million  Buddhists  in  India,  though  the  teaching 
of  Gautama  has  spread  over  Burma,  Siam,  Japan,  China, 
and  Korea.  This  expulsion  of  Buddhism  from  India  was 
the  work  of  Brahmanism,  which  has  had  a  longer  life  than 
any  other  great  religion.  Whether  it  is  at  last  beginning 
to  decline  I  do  not  know  enough  to  say.  As  a  type  of 
theocracy  it  is  very  interesting.  There  is,  I  am  told,  no 
congregational  worship  or  '  going  to  church,'  no  high-priest 
and  no  ecclesiastical  capital.  But  ritual  enters  into  social 
life  more  intimately  than  it  ever  did  with  the  Jews.  It  has 
been  said  that  a  Hindu  eats  religiously,  drinks  religiously, 
bathes  religiously,  and  sins  religiously.  It  is  his  religion 
which  has  bound  together  and  preserved  the  social  system 
of  caste  which  is  the  most  salient  feature  of  Indian  civilisa- 
tion. Religion  controls  the  life  of  an  Indian  far  more  than 
it  is  controlled  by  the  civil  laws  of  the  English  or  of  his 
own  princes  ;  this  is  why  it  is  such  a  good  example  of 
theocratic  government.  The  people  may  have  been 
conquered  half  a  dozen  times  ;  but  the  real  government — 
that  of  unseen  divine  powers — remains  unchanged.  Asiatic 
nations  are  easy  to  conquer  because  they  care  so  little  who 
collects  the  taxes.  They  are  citizens  of  an  Invisible  State. 

A  curious  development  of  theocracy  is  illustrated  by 
the  Dalai  Lama  of  Tibet.  A  sacred  ruler  who  is  an  incarna- 
tion of  the  Deity  is  in  a  very  difficult  position,  since  he 
cannot  behave  like  a  human  being  without  compromising 
his  dignity.  The  only  thing  to  do  is  to  shut  him  up.  But 
a  ruler  who  is  shut  up  cannot  govern.  So  the  theocracy 
becomes  a  sham,  and  various  court  functionaries  conduct 
the  government  in  the  name  of  the  sacrosanct  monarch. 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE        69 

It  is  said  that  the  Dalai  Lama  has  been  usually  a  boy,  and 
that  he  was  secretly  poisoned  from  Pekin  when  he  grew  up. 
There  have  been  many  other  quasi-divine  sovereigns, 
living  in  great  seclusion  behind  screens  of  elaborate  etiquette. 
Montezuma  of  Mexico  seems  to  have  been  a  ruler  of  this 
kind.  It  is  a  very  obvious  device  to  surround  the  person 
of  the  monarch  with  religious  awe,  and  if  it  is  not  carried 
too  far  it  may  make  for  stability  and  good  order  ;  but  a  man 
who  has  been  deified  before  his  death  cannot  be  shown, 
except  on  State  occasions.  It  used  to  be  supposed  that  the 
Mikado  of  Japan  was  a  potentate  of  this  kind.  The  Shoguns 
of  the  powerful  Tokugawa  clan  had  deprived  him  of  all 
real  jurisdiction,  and  even  styled  themselves  sovereigns  of 
the  country.  But  later  accounts,  from  Japanese  sources, 
do  not  support  the  view  that  the  Mikado  was  a  Grand 
Lama,  with  only  spiritual  authority.  He  kept  a  phantom 
court,  surrounded  by  a  few  officials  belonging  to  the  highest 
nobility,  but  he  was  always  de  iure  emperor  ;  and  when 
in  negotiations  with  European  powers  the  Shogun  was 
obliged  to  produce  his  credentials,  a  further  continuance 
of  his  usurpation  became  impossible.  It  would  therefore 
be  rash  to  adduce  Japan  before  the  Revolution  as  an 
example  of  an  effete  theocracy. 

Russia  under  the  Tsars  was  a  State  with  strong  theo- 
cratic elements.  The  Tsardom  was  a  genuine  continuation 
of  the  Byzantine  system,  under  which  a  close  alliance 
existed  between  State  and  Church  ;  but  since  the  secular 
arm  predominated,  we  cannot  speak  of  a  theocracy  here. 
Justinian,  who  did  much  to  consolidate  the  relations  which 
were  afterwards  to  prevail  between  Church  and  State, 
claimed  the  right  to  appoint  and  dispossess  bishops,  to 
convene  and  direct  ecclesiastical  councils,  to  sanction  their 
decisions,  and  to  amend  or  abolish  their  canons.  In  ex- 
change for  the  mastery  which  he  assumed  over  the  Church, 
he  built  churches  and  convents  in  all  parts  of  the  empire, 
and  employed  his  authority  to  suppress  heresy  and  schism. 
Both  the  Byzantine  emperors  and  the  Tsars  certainly  had 
a  sacred  character,  but  this  claim  only  enabled  them  to 
keep  the  Church  in  a  subordinate  position. 

There  is,  however,  one  very  important  theocratic  system 


70  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

which  we  have  not  yet  mentioned.  Some  15  per  cent,  of 
the  inhabitants  of  the  globe  are  followers  of  the  Arabian 
prophet,  and  the  religious  tie  which  binds  Moslems  together 
is  felt  to  be  stronger  than  any  merely  political  allegiance. 
Racialism  also  has  been  quite  overcome  by  this  religion, 
and  to  a  large  extent  class-differences  also  ;  so  that  a  low- 
caste  Hindu  has  everything  to  gain  by  becoming  "a  Mussul- 
man. Islam  has  sometimes  appeared  as  the  realisation  of 
what  the  fanatical  Jew  would  have  liked  to  see  his  own 
nation  doing — carrying  the  banner  of  the  Lord  of  hosts  into 
all  lands,  and  presenting  foreign  nations  with  the  alternative 
of  submission  or  extermination.  The  unity  of  Islam  is  also 
shown  by  the  principle  that  there  can  be  only  one  deputy 
or  vicegerent  of  the  Prophet  on  earth — though  the  faithful 
may  not  be  agreed  who  the  Caliph  is. 

But  here  again  recent  historical  research  has  modified 
the  traditional  view.  The  Arabs  were  not  at  first  eager  to 
proselytise  ;  and  though  they  undoubtedly  wished  to  put 
an  end  to  paganism,  they  were  not  intolerant  to  Christianity, 
and  treated  the  Jews  much  better  than  they  were  treated 
by  Christians  at  the  same  period.  The  conquests  of  the 
seventh  century  were  primarily  an  expansion  of  the  Arabian 
nationality,  and  only  secondarily  an  extension  of  the 
Mohammedan  faith.  The  reaction  of  the  East  against 
the  West  had  already  made  itself  felt  as  early  as  the  third 
century ;  and  Arabs  had  begun  to  swarm  before  Mohammed. 
What  Islam  did  was  to  make  the  migrations,  which  would 
have  taken  place  even  without  it,  much  more  formidable. 
It  aimed  at  making  its  adherents  soldier-priests,  combining 
as  it  were  the  sacerdotal  with  the  warrior  caste.  The 
daily  religious  exercises  maintained  the  priestly  character, 
and  also  constituted  a  useful  drill.  The  Moslem  must 
always  be  ready  for  the  Holy  War  ;  and  death  in  such  a 
war  was  a  sure  passport  to  Paradise.  The  creed  is  there- 
fore well  fitted  for  a  conquering  people,  and  it  helped  the 
Arabs  to  carry  their  arms  and  their  trade  in  a  marvellously 
short  time  to  the  Atlantic  and  the  Indian  Ocean.  The 
effects  of  that  wonderful  century  of  expansion  have  left 
a  deep  mark  on  history  to  this  day ;  but  we  must  never 
make  the  mistake  of  holding  the  Mohammedan  religion 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE        71 

responsible  for  the  barbarities  of  the  horde  of  Tartars  who 
unhappily  succeeded  the  Arabs  as  the  chief  representatives 
of  the  Islamic  peoples. 

The  theocratic  character  of  Islam  is  shown  in  its 
jurisprudence,  in  which  it  is  thoroughly  Oriental.  The 
business  of  the  legislator  and  magistrate  is  not  to  study 
an  experimental  science,  registering  cases  and  tabulating 
results,  in  order  to  improve  the  administration  of  justice. 
It  is  to  know  and  carry  out  a  set  of  rules  revealed  by  God. 
This  unprogressive  code  is,  of  course,  derived  from  the 
Koran,  which  can  never  be  superseded  by  any  subsequent 
revelation,  since  no  prophet  greater  than  Mohammed  can 
ever  arise.  This  biblio  atry  has  unquestionably  been  one 
of  the  chief  obstacles  to  progress  in  Mohammedan  coun- 
tries ;  though  in  those  Moslem  communities  which  are 
under  foreign  governments,  especially  in  British  India, 
there  is  said  to  be  considerable  readiness  to  accept  modifi- 
cations of  the  Koran,  except  in  the  case  of  ceremonial 
religion.  We  have  seen  signs  of  the  same  thing  among 
the  Jews,  who  are  also  strictly  bound  by  the  authority 
of  a  book,  but  have  found  means  to  make  the  burden 
light  without  disloyalty. 

The  theocratic  type  of  government  belongs  especially 
to  Asia.  When  it  has  appeared  in  the  West,  it  has 
indicated  a  victory  of  Asiatic  ideas  over  European.  The 
successors  of  Alexander  claimed  divine  attributes,  and 
some  of  them  inscribed  Theos  (God)  on  their  coins.  The 
Roman  Emperors  received  divine  honours  in  their  eastern 
provinces.  An  inscription  in  Asia  Minor,  dated  just  before 
the  birth  of  Christ,  announces  that  '  the  birthday  of  the 
God  (Augustus  Caesar)  has  become  the  beginning  of  glad 
tidings  (evangelia)  through  him  to  the  world.'  No  form 
of  government  seems  at  present  less  likely  to  establish 
itself  in  Europe  ;  though  we  must  not  forget  the  attempt 
of  De  Maistre  and  Chateaubriand  in  France  to  recommend 
a  Catholic  theocracy  in  the  nineteenth  century.  But 
since  it  is  one  of  the  historical  forms  under  which  the 
relations  of  the  State  Visible  and  the  State  Invisible  have 
been  adjusted,  we  may  consider  the  advantages  and 
disadvantages  of  this  type  of  constitution. 


72  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

We  have  already  mentioned  the  great  tenacity  of  life 
which  societies  theocratically  governed  seem  to  possess. 
We  are  apt  to  dismiss  such  nations  as  unprogressive  ; 
but  a  society  which  is  slow  to  advance  may  also  be 
slow  to  decline  ;  the  tortoise  may  reach  the  goal  before 
the  hare. 

It  is  also  no  small  advantage  that  the  supreme 
authority  should  be  unassailable.  It  implies  that  a 
nation  is  religious  ;  that  it  regards  the  unseen  as  the  most 
real ;  that  it  has  an  absolute  standard  of  values,  which  is 
independent  of  the  caprice  of  princes  and  the  popular 
vote.  Even  if  the  Law  which  cannot  be  altered  is  nothing 
more  than  venerable  custom,  reverence  for  the  wisdom  of 
the  past  is  a  great  asset  at  all  times,  and  in  stationary 
periods,  which  are  the  longest,  is  invaluable.  If  some 
eager  reformers  hear  this  statement  with  impatience,  we 
may  remind  them  that  revelations  are  not  always  pro- 
gressive. The  history  of  religions,  it  has  been  said  truly, 
is  usually  a  history  of  decline.  Buddhism  and  Christianity 
were  in  their  greatest  purity  and  at  their  highest  level  of 
spiritual  elevation,  when  they  were  fresh  from  the  mint. 
In  spiritual  matters,  the  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth  ; 
there  is  no  law  of  progress,  any  more  than  in  the  history 
of  art  and  literature.  So  there  is  much  gain  in  preserving 
with  all  possible  care  the  records  of  the  revelation  at  the 
time  when  it  won  its  first  victories,  and  placing  them  in 
the  guardianship  of  a  set  of  men  specially  chosen  for  this 
duty.  In  most  cases  the  sacred  deposit  consists  largely 
of  a  code  of  laws,  like  the  Hebrew  Pentateuch,  the  Indian 
Laws  of  Manu,  and  the  codes  of  half-divinised  lawgivers 
in  other  ancient  peoples.  Plutarch  defends  the  idea  of 
revelation  in  the  cases  of  Minos,  Zoroaster,  Zaleucus,  and 
Numa.  No  doubt  '  the  law  of  the  Medes  and  Persians 
that  altereth  not '  was  supposed  to  be  under  divine  sanction. 
The  theocratic  idea  also  inspires  intense  loyalty  and 
devotion.  It  turns  every  soldier  into  a  potential  martyr, 
and  enables  a  subject  nation  to  preserve  its  individuality 
and  its  traditions  in  the  face  of  long-continued  and  relent- 
less pressure.  A  warlike  nation,  filled  with  religious 
enthusiasm,  has  its  strength  doubled. 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE       73 

On  the  other  hand,  the  theocratic  idea  has  fatally 
checked  the  growth  of  many  nations,  and  has  brought 
some  to  ruin.  Bagehot  says  : 

In  primitive  times  either  men  had  no  law  at  all,  or  had  to 
obtain  a  fixed  law  by  processes  of  incredible  difficulty.  Those  who 
surmounted  that  difficulty  soon  destroyed  all  those  who  lay  in 
their  way  who  did  not.  And  then  they  themselves  were  caught 
in  their  own  yoke.  The  customary  discipline,  which  could  only 
be  imposed  on  early  man  by  terrible  sanctions,  continued  with 
those  sanctions  and  killed  out  the  propensities  to  variation  which 
are  the  principle  of  progress. 

Theocracies  also  tend  to  uphold  an  external  and 
unspiritual  doctrine  of  the  divine  favour  and  displeasure. 
We  can  trace  this  weakness  in  the  whole  history  of  the 
Hebrews.  It  is  very  difficult  for  any  nation,  especially 
for  a  half-civilised  nation,  to  accept  the  truth  that  the 
gifts  of  the  Spirit  are  in  the  spiritual  sphere,  and  that 
God  does  not  show  His  favour  by  giving  wealth,  prosperity, 
and  victory,  nor  His  anger  by  sending  pestilence,  famine, 
and  defeat  in  war.  The  Hebrews  ascribed  all  their  mis- 
fortunes— 'and  few  nations  had  so  many— to  the  anger  of 
Jehovah,  and  their  prophets  inveighed  against  the  national 
sins  which  had  incurred  such  a  chastisement.  Such 
teaching  might  be  morally  bracing ;  and  the  prophets  bore 
steady  witness  to  the  righteousness  of  God  by  attributing 
His  anger  not  only  to  idolatry  but  to  injustice,  licentious- 
ness, and  other  ethical  delinquencies.  Still,  the  connexion 
which  they  traced  between  national  misfortune  and  the 
anger  of  heaven  was  no  true  connexion,  and  it  helped 
to  mislead  the  Jewish  people  at  critical  times  of  their 
history.  In  short,  the  theocratic  idea,  when  applied  to 
the  course  of  external  events,  leads  to  a  false  political 
philosophy.  Some  of  the  prophets,  it  need  not  be  said, 
did  much  to  purify  and  elevate  the  crude  notion  of  col- 
lective reward  and  punishment,  and  to  give  the  belief  in 
divine  government  a  truer  and  more  spiritual  form. 

Another  evil  of  theocracies  is  the  hatred  and  want  of 
understanding  which  they  foster  towards  other  nations. 
Theocracy  in  history  almost  always  means  the  governance 


74  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

of  one  particular  nation  by  its  own  Deity.  It  stimulates 
the  fiercest  and  narrowest  kind  of  patriotism.  The  Jews 
were  always  notorious  for  their  odium  generis  huwani. 
Juvenal  actually  supposed  that  the  law  of  Moses  forbade 
a  Jew  to  show  the  way  to  any  uncircumcised  person. 
When  a  theocratic  State  gets  the  better  of  its  neighbours 
in  war,  it  usually  commits  great  atrocities  without  any 
sense  of  wrong-doing,  and  carries  into  effect  the  pious 
reflexion  :  '  Do  not  I  hate  those,  0  Lord,  who  hate  Thee  ? 
Yea,  I  hate  them  with  a  perfect  hatred.' 

This  attitude  of  conscientious  scorn  and  abhorrence 
for  other  nations  and  their  customs  makes  it  almost 
impossible  for  a  theocratic  nation  to  learn  anything  from 
other  peoples.  This  does  not  apply  to  the  Saracens,  who 
were  more  ready  to  assimilate  Giaeco-Roman  culture  than 
the  Christian  peoples  of  the  West  during  the  Dark  Ages. 
But  I  have  already  said  that  the  early  Arabian  conquests 
were  far  more  the  expansion  of  a  nation  than  the  pro- 
pagandism  of  a  religion.  When  the  ewarming  time  from 
Arabia  ceased,  the  Islamic  nations,  under  the  influence  of 
a  theocratic  religion  based  on  an  infallible  book,  became 
entirely  unrecej  tive,  and  have  so  remained  to  this  day. 
We  may,  in  fact,  lay  it  down  as  a  general  rule  that  theo- 
cracy may  preserve  a  nation  or  a  type  of  culture  for  a 
long  time,  but  at  last  ends  by  strangling  it.  A  theocracy 
cannot  adapt  itself  to  new  conditions  or  profit  by  new 
acquisitions  of  knowledge.  The  sacred  book,  or  the  faith 
once  delivered  to  the  saints,  becomes  a  fatal  bar  to  further 
progress.  Morality  in  such  a  nation  is  heteronomous,  not 
autonomous  :  conduct  rests  on  authority,  not  on  conscience. 
In  some  barbarous  tribes  the  sacrosanct  code  is  full  of 
absurdities,  cruelties,  and  immoralities,  so  that  customs 
are  perpetuated  under  the  sanction  of  religion  which  the 
culture  of  the  people  has  really  quite  outgrown.  So  the 
half-civilised  Aztecs  practised  human  sacrifice  and  canni- 
balism ;  and  a  long  list  might  be  made  of  similar  anomalies. 
A  heteronomous  morality  has  no  means  of  reforming  itself. 
Even  Christian  theology  preserves  some  unethical  notions 
which  would  have  been  discarded  if  they  had  not  been 
withdrawn  from  criticism.  And  from  time  to  time  these 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE       75 

survivals  poison  moral  practice,  as  in  the  religious  perse- 
cutions and  witch-trials  of  the  later  Middle  Ages  and  the 
early  modern  period.  Human  nature  changes  so  little, 
that  the  radically  false  foundation  of  heteronomous 
morality  does  not  appear  to  do  very  much  harm  ;  but 
there  are  cases  in  which  new  knowledge  has  quickened  the 
moral  sense  in  a  new  direction  ;  and  in  these  cases  we  find 
that  the  heteronomous  theocratic  idea  interposes  a  dead 
wall  of  stolid  opposition  to  the  acceptance  of  new  moral 
duties. 

There  is  another  defect  in  theocracy  as  a  form  of 
government,  which  has  had  very  serious  consequences. 
Every  government  ret-ts  ultimately  on  force,  though  at 
ordinary  times  the  force  is  kept  in  the  background  and 
the  machine  runs  itself,  kept  going  by  habit  and  custom, 
and  by  a  measure  of  general  goodwill  towards  constituted 
authority.  It  is  the  crux  of  all  political  science — how  to 
place  the  force  in  hands  which  will  not  misuse  it.  For 
example,  the  Roman  Empire  was  ruined  by  the  necessity 
of  keeping  up  a  large  standing  army  to  guard  the  frontiers 
against  the  barbarians.  The  organisation  of  a  city  State 
was  incompatible  with  this  system.  The  State  was  at 
the  mercy  of  a  popular  general  with  victorious  legions 
behind  him.  The  evil  showed  itself  as  soon  as  the  first 
long-service  professional  army  was  formed  under  Marius. 
From  that  time  till  the  downfall  of  the  Western  Empire, 
the  Roman  dominion  was  torn  by  civil  wars  between 
rival  commanders  ;  and  when  the  emperors  instituted  a 
bodyguard  or  home  army  of  pampered  Praetorians,  these 
household  troops  set  up  and  deposed  emperors  at  their 
will,  dividing  among  themselves  great  sums  of  money  at 
each  revolution.  But  under  a  theocracy  there  is  no 
material  power  to  fall  back  upon  ;  the  authority  is  spiritual 
and  unseen.  And  though  this  spiritual  authority  may  be 
the  strongest  of  all  sanctions  to  the  noblest  members  of  a 
nation,  the  majority  are  incapable  of  such  devotion,  and 
there  will  always  be  a  large  number  of  '  average  sensual 
men '  who  care  nothing  for  religion.  For  these,  a 
theocracy  must  provide  fear  and  superstition.  Savages 
are  really  governed  by  tabus ;  and  such  is  the  power  of 


76  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

suggestion  that  there  are  well-authenticated  stories  of 
healthy  men  who  have  died  of  shock  after  unintentionally 
violating  a  tabu. 

In  the  Middle  Ages  the  Popes  exercised  a  real  power 
by  excommunication  and  interdict.  As  long  as  their 
sentences  were  carried  out  on  earth,  and  were  believed  to 
be  ratified  in  heaven,  the  theocracy  had  in  reserve  a 
sufficient  coercive  force.  But  the  time  comes  when  this 
spiritual  authority  is  called  in  question  ;  and  then  the 
theocracy  is  at  once  threatened.  It  is  obliged  in  self- 
defence  to  resist  any  changes  in  the  mental  condition  of 
its  subjects  which  will  cause  its  authority  to  be  under- 
mined. This  is  why  theocracies  are  obliged  to  be 
obscurantist.  They  must  foster  the  belief  in  ecclesiastical 
miracles,  and  provide  miracles  themselves ;  they  must 
make  the  people  believe  that  the  priests  hold  the  keys  of 
heaven  and  hell ;  they  must  employ  '  Purgatory  Pickpurse ' 
for  revenue  purposes  ;  and  above  all  things,  they  must 
keep  education  in  their  own  hands,  and  endeavour  to 
press  the  ductile  minds  of  children  into  the  mould  which 
they  desire  them  to  keep  through  life.  The  miserable 
results  of  this  policy,  which  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
would  establish  everywhere  if  it  could,  are  apparent  in 
Poland,  in  Canada,  and  above  all  in  Ireland. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  waste  much  moral  indignation 
over  such  methods.  They  are  the  indispensable  machinery 
of  theocracy  ;  and  it  is  open  to  its  supporters  to  say  that 
those  who  throw  off  the  yoke  of  the  priests  often  go 
further  and  fare  worse.  Many  impartial  observers  might 
fairly  prefer  the  social  life  of  an  Austrian  or  Swiss  Catholic 
village  to  that  of  an  English  or  American  town.  Still, 
one  cannot  give  a  high  place  to  a  government  which  exists 
by  an  elaborate  system  of  deception  and  exacting  money 
under  false  pretences  ;  and  it  cannot  be  good  for  men 
and  women  to  have  their  whole  view  of  nature  and  its 
laws  distorted.  A  religion  of  this  kind  seems  to  have  a 
fatal  power  of  killing  all  other  religion  in  its  neighbour- 
hood. A  certain  number  of  pious  souls  may  find  a  welcome 
shelter  under  its  protection,  and  develop  their  spiritual 
life  in  a  very  beautiful  manner.  But  there  are  many 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE       77 

others  who  would  naturally  be  religious  after  a  different 
sort ;  and  these  are  alienated  from  religion  altogether. 
The  machinery  of  theocracy  generates  a  violent  revulsion 
against  every  kind  of  religion.  We  always  find  by  the 
side  of  priestly  authority  a  fierce  anti-clerical  feeling 
which  endangers  not  only  the  stability  of  the  government 
but  the  foundations  of  social  morality.  It  is  not  only 
the  worst  men,  but  some  of  the  best,  who  range  them- 
selves as  the  enemies  of  the  Church  in  Roman  Catholic 
countries.  Thus  the  State  tends  to  be  torn  in  two,  and 
the  dominant  factions  are  superstitious  obscurantists  on 
one  side,  and  coarse  materialists  on  the  other.  The 
moderate  parties  are  crushed  out  between  them.  Enlight- 
ened and  high-minded  reformers  find  it  impossible  to  join 
either  party,  and  are  excluded  from  public  life  altogether. 
It  is  extremely  difficult  for  a  modern  theocracy  to  reform 
itself  ;  for  it  has  probably  already  shed  many  naturally 
religious  persons  who  have  been  repelled  by  its  methods 
of  dealing  with  the  uneducated,  and  as  the  pressure 
increases,  it  has  to  depend  on  a  lower  and  lower  clientele. 
Its  chief  hope  must  be  that  the  excesses  of  the  opposite 
extremists  will  drive  all  who  value  the  continuity  of 
civilisation  and  culture  to  take  refuge  under  its  admirable 
organisation.  Such  a  possibility  is  by  no  means  remote 
in  the  world  to-day,  when  we  are  threatened  by  revolu- 
tionary movements  which  may  sweep  away  the  priceless 
treasures  which  we  have  inherited  from  the  past,  as 
completely  as  the  barbarian  invasions  obliterated  the 
classical  culture.  But  a  heavy  price  has  to  be  paid  by 
a  civilisation  which  calls  in  an  ambitious  priesthood  to 
save  it.  I  once  said  to  a  wise  man  :  '  If  we  had  to  choose 
between  the  Red  International  and  the  Black,  I  think  I 
should  choose  the  yoke  of  the  Black.'  He  replied  :  '  No. 
We  should  soon  escape  from  the  Red  tyranny ;  but  the 
Blacks  do  not  let  their  victims  go.' 


78  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 


(ii)  THE  GREEK  CITY  STATE 

We  pass  to-day  from  the  theocracies  which  flourish  so 
naturally  in  the  East  to  the  Greek  State,  whether  real  or 
ideal.  Superficially,  the  change  may  seem  to  be  from 
a  sacred  to  a  secular  government.  The  Greek  was  not 
baptized  or  married  or  buried  by  priests  ;  he  knew  of  no 
Church.  And  yet  we  should  be  much  mistaken  if  we  thought 
of  anything  like  modern  secularism  in  connexion  with  Greek 
political  theory.  When  Plutarch  says  that  a  city  might 
sooner  subsist  without  a  geographical  site  than  without 
belief  in  the  gods,  his  words  would  not  have  appeared 
strange  to  his  countrymen  at  any  time.  Very  often  the 
origin  of  a  Greek  city  was  religious,  and  the  fact  was 
indicated  by  the  very  name,  as  at  Athens  and  Megara. 
Religion,  based  on  a  real  or  fictitious  bond  ot  kinship, 
pervaded  all  the  social  and  political  life  of  the  people. 
The  city  was  an  enlarged  family  ;  membership  depended 
on  birth,  not  on  residence.  Marriages  with  aliens  were 
forbidden  or  discouraged  ;  admission  of  aliens  to  citizen- 
ship was  made  difficult.  So,  until  we  come  to  Orphism, 
there  were  no  Greek  missionaries  ;  and  it  is  easy  to  see 
how  such  ideas  as  inherited  guilt,  vicarious  punishment, 
and  communal  responsibility,  flourished  in  the  Greek 
communities. 

Geographical  conditions  helped  to  perpetuate  and 
intensify  the  clannishness  of  the  little  States.  They  were 
well  aware  of  the  weakness  and  danger  to  which  their 
divisions  exposed  them  ;  but  even  security  against  con- 
quest by  a  non-Hellenic  people  seemed  to  them  to  be 
bought  too  dear  by  the  sacrifice  of  the  city-organisation 
which  distinguished  them  from  the  barbarians.  And  as 
in  the  parallel  case  of  the  Italian  republics  and  tyrannies 
of  the  late  Middle  Ages,  'he  City-State,  which  was  a 
small  canton,  not  a  municipal  area,  proved  to  be  a  forcing 
house  of  genius  and  of  rich,  full,  joyous  life,  such  as  no  other 
type  of  State  has  produced.  It  would  not,  as  is  sometimes 
assumed  by  those  who  scold  the  Greeks  for  their  political 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE       79 

foolishness,  have  been  an  easy  or  simple  matter  to  make  the 
other  choice.  The  whole  structure  of  ancient  civilisation 
depended  on  the  City  as  the  unit.  Neither  the  Macedonians 
nor  the  Romans  tried  to  abolish  it.  And  when,  besides 
loyalty  to  the  City,  men  were  expected  to  feel  loyalty  to 
an  Empire,  the  idea  of  the  Empire  could  be  embodied  only 
in  a  divinised  monarch  standing  above  and  outside  the 
Cities — an  idea  which  really  belongs  to  the  East.  How 
strong  was  the  sentiment  of  municipal  patriotism  under 
the  Roman  Empire,  till  the  later  emperors  at  last  crushed 
it  under  their  monstrous  system  of  taxation  !  And  when 
it  died,  classical  culture  died  too. 

For  our  present  purpose  it  is  specially  necessary  to 
emphasise  that  the  Greek  State  was  a  moral  association, 
which  avowedly  existed  to  further  '  a  good  life  '  among 
its  members.  It  is  bound  together  by  Laws,  or  rather  by 
'  the  Law.'  But  the  Law  is  not  the  changing  expression  of 
the  wishes  or  the  wisdom  of  the  citizens  ;  it  is  something 
essentially  unchanging,  absolute  in  its  sanctions,  and 
sacred  in  its  origin.  Not  that  they  supposed  it  to  have  been 
written  on  tables  of  stone  by  the  finger  of  God,  like  the 
Jewish  law,  or  dictated  like  the  Koran.  The  laws  of  the 
State  were,  as  they  knew,  human  enactments  ;  but  behind 
the  laws  was  the  Law,  which  was  the  arbiter  in  the  breast 
of  every  educated  and  high-minded  citizen.  This  Law 
was  in  part  a  system  of  inherited  custom,  obedience  to 
which  has  become  a  habit ;  the  Greeks  treated  habit 
with  great  respect.  Reflection  soon  convinced  the 
philosophers  that  the  laws  are  by  no  means  always  in 
accordance  with  the  Law  of  the  ideal  State,  and,  as  we 
shall  see,  they  did  not  wish  the  State  to  be  held  together 
by  external  authority  ;  but  they  still  regarded  the  laws 
as  the  expression  of  the  wisdom  and  moral  will  of  the  living 
State,  and  each  generation  put  itself  under  them,  as  an 
authority  far  above  the  popular  will.  It  is  the  fashion 
now  to  speak  of  the  '  static  '  conception  of  society,  which 
we  are  told  belonged  to  the  Greeks,  and  to  contrast  it  with 
the  '  dynamic '  conception  at  which  we  moderns  have 
arrived.  But  the  real  difference  is  between  the  attitude 
of  reverence  to  a  law  which  we  did  not  make,  and  which 


80  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

is  above  ourselves,  and  the  modern  attitude  towards 
laws  which  merely  indicate  the  present  direction  of  the 
so-called  general  will.  The  Greek,  though  he  never 
developed  a  theocracy,  believed  in  a  divine  source  of  all 
just  government.  It  is  true  that  this  conception  of  an 
absolute  authority — an  unchanging  principle  of  justice, 
supreme  over  all  human  legislation,  was  held  in  different 
degrees  by  different  thinkers.  In  two  or  three  books 
of  the  '  Politics,'  Aristotle  uses  very  modern  language  in 
discussing  legislation,  without  direct  reference  to  ethical 
standards.  But  he  never,  I  think,  really  teaches  that 
the  laws,  whether  morally  good  or  bad,  are  the  creators  of 
right.  Plato,  though  more  decidedly  in  the  '  Republic '  and 
'  Statesman  '  than  in  the  '  Laws,'  allows  an  appeal  from  the 
laws  as  they  are  to  the  laws  as  they  ought  to  be,  and  feels 
no  great  respect  for  the  legislation  of  Athens  as  he  knew  it. 
Even  in  the  '  Laws  '  he  returns  at  last  to  the  State  Invisible 
as  the  true  lawgiver,  and  laments  that  from  want  of 
education  and  high  principle  the  citizens  of  every  earthly 
State  produce  such  a  poor  copy  of  it  on  earth. 

There  was  nothing  new  in  this  attitude.  Heracleitus 
seems  to  have  developed  the  idea  of  a  law  of  nature,  which 
he  studied  as  the  basis  of  physics.  Physics,  in  his  view, 
is  an  intermediary  between  '  the  one  divine  law,  which  is 
infinitely  strong,  and  suffices,  with  something  over,  for  all 
human  laws,'  and  the  human  laws  themselves.  Physical 
laws  are  manifestations  or  emanations  of  the  divine 
wisdom  which  penetrates  all  things  ;  and  human  laws  are, 
or  should  be,  framed  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of 
nature.  Unfortunately,  '  the  good  are  few,  the  evil  are 
many  '  ;  the  majority  of  men  live  as  if  they  had  a  private 
world  of  their  own,  instead  of  reverencing  the  Reason  which 
is  one  and  common  to  all.  Only  the  wisest  can  thus  com- 
mune with  the  World  Soul  (I  do  not  mean  that  Heracleitus 
uses  this  phrase)  ;  and  the  wisest,  at  Ephesus  and  else- 
where, are  spurned  and  driven  out.  Heracleitus  seems 
on  one  side  to  be  near  to  the  naturalistic  and  evolutionary 
ethics  of  the  nineteenth  century  ;  but  his  Law  was  a 
mystical  and  spiritual  principle,  operative  throughout 
the  universe.  He  was  no  materialist, 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE       81 

Already  in  the  fifth  century  the  distinction  between 
the  State  as  it  is  and  as  it  ought  to  be  had  found  expression 
in  the  famous  antithesis  of  </>vcm  and  vo/xo?.  The  claim 
to  try  and  condemn  all  human  institutions  by  an  absolute 
principle,  discovered  by  education,  by  conscience,  or  by 
intuition,  is  the  parent  of  all  reform,  and  of  all  revolution 
too.  It  is  capable  of  being  applied  in  two  opposite  direc- 
tions. For  what  is  the  '  Nature  '  which  is  so  often  opposed 
to  '  Convention  '  ?  Is  it  the  character  and  will  and  law  of 
God,  the  guiding  principle  of  the  archetypal  world  ;  or 
is  it  the  right  of  the  stronger  to  dominate  if  he  can  ? 

The  Greeks  at  this  time  were  keenly  interested  in 
comparative  politics  ;  and  they  could  not  help  reflecting 
that  if  '  Nature  '  was  one,  and  '  Law  '  very  different  in 
different  countries,  Law  and  Nature  cannot  be  identical. 
The  great  interest  of  the  '  Antigone,'  to  a  Greek,  lay  in  the 
sharp  conflict  between  '  Law '  and  '  Nature.'  If  Law 
commands  us  to  commit  an  impiety,  ought  we  or  ought  we 
not  to  be  passive  resisters  ?  The  Greek  conscience  pre- 
ferred obedience  to  the  '  unwritten  laws,  the  origin  of  which 
no  one  knows  ' ;  but  it  was  not  a  clear  case  ;  to  reject  the 
laws  of  the  State  must  always  be  a  serious  matter. 

How  serious  a  matter  it  is  was  soon  evident  from  certain 
developments  of  political  and  moral  speculation.  Con- 
ventional morality  may  be  rejected  in  favour  of  a  purer 
and  higher  law,  or  in  favour  of  no  law  at  all.  The  Sophists, 
who  were  not  a  school  of  philosophers,  but  professional 
educators,  in  some  cases  found  reasons  for  young  men 
who  wished  to  make  a  career  for  themselves  in  total  dis- 
regard of  ordinary  standards  of  right  and  wrong.  They 
argued  sometimes  like  Hobbes,  sometimes  like  Machiavelli, 
and  sometimes  like  Nietzsche.  Callicles  in  the  '  Gorgias ' 
uses  Nietzsche's  phrase  about '  slave-morality.'  A  favourite 
argument  was  that  since  the  laws  represent  only  con- 
vention, the  wise  man  will  break  them  without  scruple, 
if  he  can  do  so  with  impunity.  The  Cynics  and  Cyrenaics 
preached  downright  moral  anarchism,  throwing  away  the 
idea  of  the  State  altogether.  It  was  absurd,  they  said, 
to  profess  loyalty  and  self-devotion  to  a  mere  geographical 
area.  No  doubt  this  line  of  thought  might  be  interpreted 


82  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

as  a  noble  cosmopolitanism  and  belief  in  the  brotherhood 
of  mankind ;  but  both  in  ancient  and  modern  times 
cosmopolitanism  is  often  only  a  mask  for  selfishness  and 
a  desire  to  evade  social  obligations.  The  Cynic  may  be 
either  a  beast  or  a  god,  but  he  is  not  often  a  god. 

This  brings  us  to  Plato,  the  enemy  of  the  Sophists. 
The  remainder  of  this  lecture  will  be  occupied  with  his 
political  teaching,  which  I  need  not  say  has  permanent 
value  of  the  highest  kind.  In  the  earlier  dialogues, 
especially  the  '  Gorgias,'  he  emphasises  two  things  as  indis- 
pensable for  a  statesman — a  high  moral  purpose  and 
knowledge  of  his  business.  Plato  never  wavered  in 
insisting  on  these  two  qualifications.  They  are  at  the 
root  of  the  political  doctrines  of  the  '  Republic.'  Ignorance 
and  selfishness  are  the  two  banes  of  political  life.  Under 
a  democracy  every  citizen  thinks  that  he  is  qualified  to 
govern  the  country,  and  the  result  is  utter  inefficiency. 
And  the  individualism  justified  by  the  Sophists  disintegrates 
the  State,  which  becomes  a  chaos  of  warring  factions. 
Justice  requires  that  every  man  should  be  set  to  the  work 
for  which  nature  has  fitted  him  ;  nothing  is  more  unjust 
than  the  artificial,  factitious  equality  of  unequals.  This 
is  the  fundamental  vice  of  democracy  :  the  other,  indivi- 
dualistic self-seeking,  he  regards  as  specially  characteristic 
of  oligarchies,  chiefly  because  for  him  an  oligarchy  means 
a  commercialised  State.  The  real  root  of  the  evil  in 
such  a  State  is  love  of  money.  Where  this  dominates  social 
life,  the  State  tends  to  be  divided  into  two  parties,  or 
rather  two  nations — the  rich  and  the  poor ;  and  these  are  at 
war  one  with  another.  In  the  passage  where  these  words 
occur  he  closely  resembles  the  well-known  and  remark- 
able diagnosis  of  social  disease  in  England,  in  Disraeli's 
•  Sybil.' 

But  Plato  was  well  aware  that  greed  and  selfishness 
are  likely  to  be  quite  as  prevalent  and  quite  as  destructive 
under  a  democracy.  He  saw  only  two  possible  remedies, 
unless  or  until  the  citizens  were  sufficiently  educated 
and  moralised  to  be  free  from  these  evil  passions.  One 
was  to  renounce  industrialism  altogether.  A  very  small 
State  of  agriculturists,  living  away  from  the  sea  and  there- 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE        83 

fore  out  of  reach  of  temptation  to  make  money  by  trade, 
might  live  a  peaceful  and  wholesome  life,  exchanging  their 
products  by  simple  barter,  and  not  quarrelling  among  them- 
selves. Civilisation,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word, 
might  '  cure  '  itself  by  cutting  its  own  throat.  This  is  the 
solution  which  has  commended  itself  to  many  idealists 
between  Plato  and  Kuskin.  The  chief  obstacle  is  the 
presence  of  a  large  population  which  industrialism  has 
called  into  existence,  and  which  would  have  to  be  got 
rid  of  somehow.  It  might  also  be  objected  that  the  life 
of  the  peasant  proprietor,  e.g.  in  France,  is  by  no  means 
ideal ;  and  that  there  is  probably  no  class  in  any  country 
which  is  so  preoccupied  with  petty  gains  and  savings 
as  the  French  small  farmers.  But  this  last  objection 
perhaps  did  not  apply  so  strongly  to  farming  in  Greece. 
In  the  land  of  the  vine  and  olive  work  is  far  less  incessant, 
and  a  hardy  but  comparatively  free  and  happy  existence 
is  the  lot  of  all,  provided  that  the  population  is  kept  down. 
At  any  rate,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  Plato  was  firmly 
convinced  that  the  inevitable  price  paid  for  industrial 
progress  is  too  high.  He  clung  to  the  ideal  of  the  self- 
sufficing  life. 

The  second  remedy  for  corruption  and  injustice  in 
government  is  one  of  the  greatest  interest  and  importance. 
He  has  observed  that  political  power  is  always  abused  by 
the  ruling  class  to  plunder  and  exploit  the  governed.  It 
is,  he  says,  as  if  watch-dogs  were  to  turn  into  wolves, 
and  devour  the  sheep  entrusted  to  them.  That  a  tyrant 
plunders  his  subjects  needs  no  demonstration  ;  though  if 
he  is  strong  enough  to  prevent  anyone  else  from  plundering, 
the  people  may  be  comparatively  fortunate  under  his  rule. 
An  oligarchy  will  try  to  monopolise  the  avenues  of  wealth, 
though  it  will  keep  them  open  to  unusual  ability  from  the 
lower  classes  ;  so  that  this  form  of  government,  as  has 
been  demonstrated  by  modern  experience,  is  favourable 
to  material  progress.  But  a  democracy,  as  had  become 
apparent  even  in  Plato's  time,  will  vote  itself  doles  and 
pensions  from  the  exchequer,  and  will  pillage  the  rich  by 
means  of  super-taxes  ('liturgies')  and  capital  levies.  In 
this  way  the  resources  of  the  nation  are  soon  exhausted  ; 


84  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

and  the  property  -owners  are  tempted  to  plot  for  a  counter- 
revolution. 

And  what  is  Plato's  remedy,  assuming  that  we  must 
take  the  '  luxurious  State,'  with  all  its  paraphernalia  of 
trade  and  commerce  and  capital  and  a  wage-earning  class, 
as  a  fait  accompli  ?  It  is  that  political  and  economic 
power  must  not  be  in  the  same  hands.  This,  as  we  shall 
see,  is  the  reason  for  his  communism,  and  for  his  prohibition 
of  family  life,  which  he  never  thought  of  applying  to 
the  whole  population,  but  only  to  the  governing  class. 
The  governing  class  was  deliberately  to  be  put  in  a  posi- 
tion which  the  ordinary  man  would  not  wish  to  occupy. 
Its  members  were  to  be  heavily  penalised,  deprived  of  all 
that  the  average  man  most  values.  They  were  to  be  held 
in  great  honour  ;  he  hopes  that  an  ascetic,  self-sacrificing 
class  will  always  be  held  in  honour  ;  but  they  are  to  be 
deprived  of  all  temptation,  and  all  possibility  of  making 
gain  for  themselves  out  of  their  political  power.  He  saw 
clearly,  what  the  uniform  experience  of  mankind  has  since 
demonstrated  to  be  the  truth,  that  communism  is  only 
possible  under  two  conditions.  One  is  the  abolition  of  the 
family.  It  is  impossible  to  abolish  private  property  on  any 
other  terms.  The  .various  communistic  experiments  in 
the  United  States  and  elsewhere  have  proved  that  a  com- 
munistic settlement  may  continue  for  a  hundred  years  or 
more,  if  celibacy  is  one  of  the  rules.  Otherwise  it  invariably 
collapses  within  a  single  generation.  In  America  the  celibate 
communists  have  generally  become  rich,  through  the 
unearned  increment  in  the  value  of  their  landed  property  ; 
and  they  have  then  shown  no  zeal  in  making  proselytes. 
The  normal  end  of  such  an  experiment,  in  America,  is  a 
tontine,  in  which  the  property  of  the  community,  some- 
times very  large,  devolves  upon  the  last  survivors  of  a  club 
which  refuses  to  admit  new  members.  The  last  communist 
is  an  aged,  childless  millionaire.  But  this  would  not  happen 
under  Plato's  scheme.  The  other  indispensable  condition 
is  a  religious  basis,  in  the  absence  of  which  quarrels  soon 
break  out,  ending  in  early  disruption.  Plato  hopes  that 
he  has  secured  this,  and  I  think  he  has  secured  it.  We  shall 
not  understand  the  '  Republic '  unless  we  realise  that  his 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE       85 

communism  is  a  heroic  remedy  for  a  desperate  evil — 
the  union  of  political  power  and  economic  temptation 
— in  the  hands  of  the  same  class.  And  even  if  we 
think  that  his  expedient  is  impracticable,  and  that  the 
sacrifice  demanded  of  the  Guardians  in  the  'Republic'  is 
heavier  than  any  man  ought  to  be  called  upon  to  pay 
(though  we  must  remember  that  the  Catholic  monks  and 
nuns  are  willing  to  pay  it,  and  something  more,  for  Plato's 
Guardians  were  not  pledged  to  life-long  continence),  we 
must  admit  that  the  abuse  against  which  his  scheme  was 
directed  is  a  gigantic  evil,  and  that  it  has  baffled  all  makers 
of  constitutions  and  all  political  philosophers  from  that 
day  to  this.  The  union  of  political  power  with  economic 
temptation  has  been  the  source  of  innumerable  acts  of 
injustice,  and  has  been  one  of  the  greatest  obstacles  to 
human  happiness.  It  is  notorious  that  under  an  oligarchy 
or  '  timocracy  '  the  politically  unrepresented  classes  are 
unfairly  treated.  If  they  are  not  overtaxed  in  the  literal 
sense,  they  are  exploited  and  unable  to  reap  the  full  fruit 
of  their  labours.  But  modern  thought  is  slow  to  admit 
that  power  in  the  hands  of  the  populace  is  certain  to  be 
equally  abused.  The  newly  enfranchised  masses  for  some 
time  astonished  the  world  by  their  moderation  ;  and  it 
was  quite  wrongly  supposed  that  they  were  more  just  and 
generous  by  nature  than  the  classes  which  had  held  power 
before  them.  The  truth  is  that,  at  least  in  this  country, 
the  extension  of  the  suffrage  was  granted  before  the  masses 
were  ready  for  it ;  it  was  given  in  the  course  of  the  frantic 
struggle  for  power  between  two  political  factions,  neither 
of  which,  in  the  excitement  of  the  party  game,  cared  to 
look  far  ahead.  Disraeli  hoped  to  dish  the  Whigs  ;  the 
head  of  his  own  party  soon  adorned  the  same  charger. 
No  impartial  observer  can  any  longer  doubt  that  Plato's 
opinion  as  to  the  danger  of  giving  the  power  of  the  purse  to 
the  democracy  was  quite  correct.  For  two  generations 
or  so  the  political  inexperience  of  the  populace  was  so  great 
that  it  allowed  itself  to  be  dragged  into  such  purely  middle- 
class  causes  as  the  campaign  against  the  Church  and  the 
House  of  Lords.  But  now  that  it  has  had  time  to  realise 
its  power  and  formulate  its  own  demands,  the  middle-class 


86  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

programme  has  been  dropped,  and  one  thing  alone  excites 
enthusiasm,  the  pillage  of  the  minority,  exactly  as  Plato 
told  us.  So  entirely  does  this  object  dominate  all  other 
considerations,  that  it  unites  in  one  predatory  horde 
parties  whose  political  philosophy  (if  we  may  dignify  it 
by  such  a  name)  ought  to  place  them  in  diametrically 
opposite  camps.  No  two  types  of  political  thought  are 
more  radically  opposed  to  each  other  than  that  of  the 
Socialist,  for  whom  the  State  is  everything,  and  that  of  the 
Syndicalist,  for  whom  the  State  is  nothing.  But  as  long 
as  the  loot  lasts,  they  are  willing  to  work  together.  The 
consequences  to  the  nation  may  be  even  more  ruinous 
than  could  result  from  absolute  monarchy  or  oligarchy  ; 
and,  if  so,  Plato's  political  insight  will  once  more  be 
justified  by  the  course  of  history. 

Another  practical  problem,  also  of  great  and  permanent 
importance,  which  exercised  the  mind  of  Plato,  was  the 
choice  between  many-sidedness  and  specialisation.  On 
the  whole,  Athens  had  stood  for  the  former,  and  Sparta 
for  the  latter,  just  as  in  modern  times  America  might  be 
taken  as  the  type  of  eurpaTreXta,  and  Germany  of 
differentiated  functions.  The  Sophists  were  considered 
to  have  fostered  versatility  in  its  least  desirable  aspects ; 
and  Plato  detested  them  and  their  works.  Moreover, 
without  being  exactly  a  pro-Spartan,  he  was  keenly  alive 
to  the  superior  efficiency,  in  some  directions  at  least,  of 
the  Lacedaemonian  type  ;  and  his  temperament  led  him 
to  lay  great  stress  on  '  my  station  and  its  duties/  It  was 
also  becoming  plainer  every  year  that  in  one  department, 
and  that  the  most  vital  to  the  existence  of  the  State, 
the  amateur  was  no  match  for  the  professional.  The  day 
of  the  militiaman  or  territorial  was  passing  ;  the  day  of 
the  professional  soldier  was  at  hand. 

And  so  Plato  gives  us  a  neat  tripartite  division  of  his  ideal 
State  into  rulers,  soldiers,  and  workers,  each  with  a  special 
trade  to  learn.  So  only,  he  thought,  could  incompetence 
be  banished.  No  doubt  this  was  one  of  the  Pythagorean 
triads.  The  Pythagoreans  also  divided  manhood  into 
Lovers  of  Wisdom,  Lovers  of  Honour,  and  Lovers  of 
Money  ;  and  they  found  a  corresponding  tripartite  division 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE        87 

in  the  human  soul,  in  which  one  or  other  of  its  three  faculties 
tends  to  predominate.  Plato,  like  the  Stoics  later,  wishes 
the  higher  part  of  the  soul  to  rule  the  lower  ;  but  he  does 
not  fall  into  the  ascetical  error  of  wishing  to  suppress  the 
lower  altogether.  On  the  contrary,  the  ideal  is  a  '  musical 
harmony  '  of  the  three.  This  ideal  might  seem  to  point 
to  a  similar  harmony  in  the  individual  souls  of  all  the 
citizens,  which  would  make  his  extreme  specialisation 
unnecessary.  But  he  knows  the  weaknesses  of  human 
nature,  and  the  chaos  of  inefficiency  which  results  if  the 
constitution  is  based  on  the  assumption  that  all  men  are 
equally  fitted  to  undertake  any  kind  of  service  ;  and  so 
he  decides  in  favour  of  professionalism,  with  such  safe- 
guards against  abuse  as  he  can  devise.  And  his  system 
provides  that  those  who  are  chosen  and  trained  to  embody 
the  higher  elements  in  human  character  shall  actually 
govern.  It  is  for  the  advantage  of  all  that  they  should. 
It  is  also  '  just,'  since  justice  demands  that  every  man 
should  be  put  to  the  work  that  he  is  best  fitted  to  do. 
The  invisible  or  ideal  principle  is  the  eternal  fact  of 
'  justice,'  which  is  part  of  the  fundamental  law  of  the 
universe.  He  is  entirely  free  from  the  false  mysticism 
which  has  produced  the  conception  of  a  '  general  will,' 
a  sort  of  resultant  of  the  wisdom  or  folly  of  the  whole 
community,  personalised  and  half  divinised. 

Of  course  the  danger  of  this  kind  of  polity  is  that  it  may 
harden  into  a  rigid  caste  system,  as  in  India.  Plato  wishes 
the  transition  from  one  class  to  another  to  be  as  easy  as 
possible,  and  though  he  does  not  say  so,  he  probably 
thought  that  the  three  classes  would  tend  to  sort  themselves 
without  much  friction,  since  a  man  who  preferred  industry 
and  money-making  would  wish  to  belong  to  the  third  class, 
the  spirited  man  to  the  soldier  class,  and  the  idealist  and 
political  philosopher  to  the  class  of  guardians.  All  three 
classes  have  to  make  real  sacrifices  ;  but  is  not  this  the  case 
under  any  polity  that  we  may  choose  ?  To  put  the  power 
in  the  hands  of  the  most  unselfish  class  is  at  any  rate  an 
experiment  well  worth  trying. 

Some  difficulty  is  caused  to  the  modern  reader  by  Plato's 
unfamiliar  use  of  the  word  justice,  which  for  us  is  loaded 


88  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

with  Roman  ideas  of  ius,  with  which  the  Greek  conception 
has  little  in  common.  It  is  not  easy  to  distinguish  justice 
in  Plato  from  o-fa^poa-vvrj,  a  virtue  for  which  we  have  no 
exact  equivalent.  Justice  for  Plato  means  social  morality 
based  on  an  absolute  standard  of  right  and  wrong.  The 
State  is  not  a  legal  person  ;  it  is  not  a  person  at  all,  since 
there  is  no  social  sensorium  ;  but  it  is  a  moral  unity  with  a 
common  function  and  end.  From  the  moral  and  spiritual 
point  of  view,  we  are  members  of  a  body,  bound  together  by 
reciprocal  duties.  It  is  '  unjust '  for  any  citizen  not  to  play 
his  part,  even  if  his  failure  is  due  to  being  put  to  work  for 
which  he  is  not  naturally  fitted.  It  is  by  this  standard  that 
he  tries,  and  for  the  most  part  condemns,  concrete  law, 
tradition  and  custom.  Human  institutions  must  stand  or 
fall  according  as  they  correspond  or  fail  to  correspond 
with  perfect  justice. 

There  is  yet  another  great  question  which  all  social 
philosophers  have  to  face — the  relative  importance  of 
Nature  and  Nurture.  It  is  a  question  which  now  separates 
science  very  sharply  from  dominant  political  tendencies. 
If  we  were  to  adopt  Plato's  Republic  and  make  men  of 
science  our  guardians,  the  whole  course  of  legislation 
would  be  revolutionised.  We  seldom  realise  how  far  our 
social  policy  is  antagonistic  to  the  firm  convictions  of  a  small 
but  extremely  competent  class  of  thinkers — the  natural 
philosophers.  Their  warnings  are  disregarded  by 
politicians  because  they  are  too  few  to  count  in  elections, 
and  by  the  populace  because  with  the  majority  reason 
counts  for  nothing  against  passion,  and  the  welfare  of 
posterity  is  nothing  against  the  desires  of  the  moment  ; 
but  Dame  Nature,  who,  as  Plotinus  says,  '  never  talks/ 
has  her  own  way  of  dealing  with  those  who  flout  her. 
Plato  is  a  eugenist  and  a  scientific  thinker  ;  but  he  thinks 
that  education  is  the  only  remedy  for  selfishness  and 
ignorance,  and  accordingly  pays  more  attention  to  nurture 
than  to  nature,  therein  differing,  apparently  but  not 
really,  from  the  men  of  science.  Greek  education,  as  Plato 
found  it  at  Athens,  was  not  very  unlike  the  education  of 
an  English  gentleman  at  a  public  school  and  at  Oxford. 
It  included  physical  training,  literary  studies,  the  religious 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE        89 

lesson,  and,  for  those  who  wished  to  complete  the  course, 
the  art  of  public  speaking  and  political  theory.  The 
typical  product,  like  the  typical  product  of  Oxford,  was  a 
versatile  and  accomplished  man  who  could  take  kindly 
to  a  public  career.  Like  our  own  education,  it  was  on  a 
voluntary  basis  and  unorganised  ;  it  was  left  to  the  family 
and  not  to  the  State.  At  Sparta,  as  in  Prussia,  it  was 
quite  otherwise  ;  and  Plato  craves  for  the  Spartan  spirit 
of  discipline,  if  he  can  have  it  without  paying  too  high 
a  price.  It  will  not  be  necessary  for  our  purpose  to  de- 
scribe the  educational  system  propounded  in  the  '  Republic ' 
and  other  dialogues.  It  is  all  meant  to  converge  upon  the 
Idea  of  the  Good  ;  and  though  contemplation  is  higher 
than  action,  the  philosopher  is  not  choosing  the  highest 
course  if  he  withdraws  himself  from  public  affairs.  He 
ought  to  try  '  to  save  his  country  as  well  as  himself.'  We 
moderns  observe  that  ambition  may  draw  away  a  possible 
saint  or  philosopher  to  what  Seeley  calls  the  ignominious 
end  of  a  large  practice  at  the  bar  ;  Plato  exhorts  the  good 
man  to  renounce  the  ambition  of  living  in  constant  com- 
munion with  the  divine  Ideas,  in  order  to  be  practically 
useful  to  his  fellow-citizens. 

Plato's  theory  of  education  has  been  made  too  little 
of  ;  his  scheme  of  communism  has  been  made  too  much 
of.  There  was  never  any  socialistic  party  at  Athens  ; 
and  Plato  has  very  little  interest  in  problems  of  distribu- 
tion. He  denies  private  property  to  the  two  smaller 
classes  (the  army  was  to  be  a  very  small  one)  only  because 
he  wants  those  classes  to  attend  to  their  public  duties 
without  distraction  and  still  more  without  temptation. 
The  true  analogy  is  not  between  the  'Republic'  and  the 
theories  of  Marx  or  Lenin,  but  between  the  '  Republic  '  and 
Catholic  monasticism.  The  motives  for  conventual  com- 
munism and  clerical  celibacy  were  the  same  as  those  of 
Plato.  The  hermits  were  Christian  Cynics.  Nietzsche 
said  that  Plato  was  a  Christian  before  Christ.  It  would 
be  more  true  to  say  that  he  was  a  Hildebrandian  before 
Hildebrand. 

The  abolition  of  the  family  follows  necessarily  from  the 
abolition  of  private  property.  It  is  impossible  to  destroy 


90  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

one  without  destroying  the  other.  This  the  consistent 
modern  socialists  quite  understand  ;  and  they  also  under- 
stand that  they  cannot  get  their  way  without  first  destroy- 
ing Christianity.  Plato  had  not  such  deeply  rooted  con- 
victions about  marriage  to  encounter  ;  the  Greek  city  was 
a  men's  club,  and  the  breaking  up  of  the  home  was  not  so 
shocking  to  them  as  it  is  to  most  of  us.  Moreover,  Plato 
advocated  neither  celibacy  nor  promiscuity.  The  unions 
of  the  sexes  were  to  be  regulated  by  the  State,  very  much 
as  they  were  in  the  communistic  society  organised  by 
Mr.  Noyes  in  America.  Enough  has  been  said  on  this 
part  of  the  scheme.  The  significant  part  of  it  is  that  the 
guardians  are  to  be  kept  unworldly  and  pure  from  ambition 
or  covetousness.  Like  the  Roman  Catholic  priests  or 
monks,  they  are  to  have  such  temptations  put  out  of  their 
reach. 

Plato  is  not  drawing  a  Utopia.  He  is  planning  a  per- 
fect Greek  City-State,  and  he  does  not  think  his  scheme 
impossible  to  carry  out.  '  We  do  not  speak  of  things  that 
are  impossible/  he  says  in  the  '  Republic,' '  though  we  admit 
that  they  are  difficult/  '  It  is  no  mere  dream,'  he  says 
again  ;  '  if  kings  were  philosophers,  or  philosophers  kings, 
it  might  be  realised.'  It  is  plain  that  the  guardians  might 
rule  without  a  monarchy,  and  probably  better  without  a 
monarchy  ;  but  the  difficulty  is  to  get  the  scheme  started, 
except  by  the  agency  of  a  philosophic  lawgiver  invested 
with  plenary  authority.  Isocrates  and  Plato,  who  differed 
on  most  things,  agreed  that  the  salvation  of  Greece  depended 
on  the  revival  of  monarchy.  To  break  the  tradition,  he 
makes  the  deliberately  absurd  suggestion  that  all  adults 
should  be  sent  away  to  the  farms,  and  the  little  children 
educated  in  the  capital,  away  from  contamination  by  their 
elders. 

But  in  other  moods  Plato  suspects  that  his  Republic 
is  impossible.  '  Our  city  is  founded  on  words  ;  for  it 
exists  nowhere,  I  think,  on  earth.'  '  It  is  no  matter/  he 
says  again,  '  whether  it  exists  or  ever  will  exist.'  This 
last  sentence  is  a  touchstone  to  distinguish  Platonists  from 
non-Platonists.  The  non-Platonist  knows  only  of  concrete 
actual  realities,  past,  present,  or  to  be,  and  unsubstantial 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE        91 

dreams,  which  are  of  no  importance  except  as  ideals  of 
what  we  hope  and  intend  to  do  or  see  done.     The  ideals 
of  the  Platonist  are  Ideas,  that  is  to  say,  eternal  truths, 
the  constitutive  factors  of  a  world  more  real  than  ours. 
This  spiritual  world  is  the  archetype  and  exemplar  of  this 
world  as  we  wish  it  to  be  ;   but  in  the  nature  of  things  it 
is  impossible  that  the  State  Visible  can  ever  be  a  perfect 
reproduction  of  the  State  Invisible.     We  are  hampered 
here  not  only  by  the  manifold  defects  of  human  nature, 
but  by  the  very  conditions  of  time  and  place,  of  change 
and  decay.     In  all  our  efforts  to  improve  the  constitution 
and  working  of  the  Visible  State,  we  must  keep  our  minds 
set  on  the  perfect  State,  of  which  the  type  is  laid  up  in 
heaven,  and  apply  the  principles  which  philosophic  intuition 
can  make  known  to  us  as  the  principles  of  perfect  justice, 
to  the  imperfect  conditions  of  a  concrete  community,  in 
the  hope  that  they  may  work  as  a  leaven  in  the  Visible 
State,  and  gradually  remould  it  nearer  to   the  heart's 
desire.     To  the  Platonist,  we  cannot  insist  too  strongly, 
the  actual  reality  of  the  Invisible  State  is  independent  of 
its  realisation  on  earth.     It  remains  and  always  will  remain 
the  spiritual  home  of  the  good  man,  to  which  he  can  flee 
away  and  be  at  rest  when  he  will.     It  is  a  sanctuary  where 
God  can  hide  him  privily  by  His  own  presence  from  the 
provoking  of  all  men,  and  keep  him  secretly  in  His  taber- 
nacle from  the  strife  of  tongues.     Plato  does  not  relegate 
his  heaven  to  the  dim  and  distant  future  ;    still  less  does 
he,  like  ancient  and  modern  apocalyptists,  dream  of  it  as 
something  to  be  realised,  no  one  knows  how,  the  day  after 
to-morrow.     On  the  contrary,   he  knows  that  it  never 
will  and  never  can  be  fully  realised  on  earth,  and  he  has 
no  confidence  that  the  course  of  history  will  bring  it  much 
nearer.     It  already  exists,  though  not  here  ;   it  is  already 
accessible,  though  not  to  all  men  ;   it  is  the  real  city  of 
which  we  are  citizens,  but  there  is  a  toilsome,  spiritual 
ascent  (ascende  per  te  ipsum  super  te  ipsum)  which  every 
man  has  to  climb  in  order  to  reach  it.     There  is  a  crucial 
divergence  here  between  secularism  and  idealism  (I  do  not 
use  the  word  in  the  post-Kantian  sense,  for  which  I  prefer 
the  word  mentalism) ;   indeed  there  is  no  deeper  cleavage 


92  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

in  human  thought  than  that  which  divides  those  who 
believe  in  an  eternal,  independently  existing  City  of  God 
from  those  who  do  not  believe  in  it.  Here  Platonism  and 
Christianity  are  at  one.  Christ  knew  nothing  of  Greek 
philosophy ;  but  Plato  would  have  endorsed  without 
hesitation  the  words  :  '  Lay  not  up  for  yourselves  treasures 
upon  earth,  where  moth  and  rust  doth  corrupt,  and  where 
thieves  break  through  and  steal.  But  lay  up  for  yourselves 
treasures  in  heaven,  where  neither  moth  nor  rust  doth 
corrupt,  and  where  thieves  do  not  break  through  nor  steal. 
For  where  your  treasure  is,  there  will  your  heart  be  also/ 
The  spiritual  world  has  a  supreme  and  independent  reality  : 
this  is  the  cornerstone  of  Christianity,  and  of  its  old  ally 
the  philosophy  of  Plato. 

And  yet  it  is  an  essential  part  of  this  religious  philosophy 
that  the  spiritual  world  is  the  goal  of  aspiration  for  all 
things  here  below,  in  their  several  degrees.  Every  living 
thing  has  a  '  nature  '  which  is  not  material  but  spiritual ; 
and  above  all,  the  human  soul,  and  the  State  which  is  the 
human  soul  writ  large,  have  a  moral  and  spiritual  end  or 
purpose.  It  is  therefore  impossible  to  separate  the  Visible 
and  Invisible  State  as  two  cities  which  have  no  concern  with 
each  other.  The  Invisible  State  is  the  norm  or  standard 
by  which  to  judge  the  Visible.  This  Plato  says  explicitly. 
'  Our  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  absolute  justice  has  been 
undertaken  with  the  object  of  finding  an  ideal,  that  men 
may  judge  of  their  actual  condition  according  to  the 
standard  which  that  ideal  sets  up,  and  the  degree  in  which 
their  actual  condition  approximates  to  it.' 

The  familiar  criticism  that  Platonism  assumes  a  static 
universe  seems  to  me  not  a  serious  charge.  That  the 
eternal  world  is  already  perfect  it  certainly  asserts  ;  but 
what  is  the  alternative  ?  A  perfection  which  is  never  and 
nowhere  attained  ;  a  purpose  which  is  eternally  frustrate  ; 
God  and  man  alike  condemned  to  the  doom  of  Tantalus ; 
victories  in  time  which  time  presently  hurls  into  nothing- 
ness ;  the  pursuit  of  a  will-of-the-wisp  of  progress,  to  which 
neither  science  nor  history  can  have  anything  to  say  ; 
a  fluctuating  and  subjective  standard  of  good,  which  has 
no  sanction  beyond  the  wishes  and  ideals  of  imperfect  man  ; 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE       93 

and  a  God  who  has  not  and  never  will  come  into  His  own. 
Platonism  teaches  a  finite  and  limited  teleology  pervading 
the  whole  of  nature,  an  infinite  number  and  variety  of 
purposes  which  because  they  are  finite  are  capable  of 
being  realised  ;  and  an  eternal  background  from  which 
they  derive  their  inspiration,  and  in  which  they  rest  when 
their  course  is  run. 

Too  frequently  these  purposes  are  not  attained  ;  and  the 
history  of  States,  as  of  individuals,  is  one  of  perversion 
and  decline.  Plato  traces  the  course  of  these  corruptions, 
and  for  the  purposes  of  exposition  supposes  a  perfect  State 
which  gradually  becomes  perverted.  He  does  not  say  that 
history  always  follows  this  sequence,  and  Aristotle  rather 
captiously  points  out  that  it  does  not  ;  but  there  was 
enough  in  Greek  history  to  make  Plato's  sketch  plausible 
and  valuable,  and  the  medieval  Italian  Republics  present 
several  parallels.  The  history  of  Rome  followed  Plato's 
sequence  of  oligarchy,  democracy,  tyranny,  and  it  is  by 
no  means  certain  that  some  modern  States  will  not  do  the 
same.  Examples  of  degradation  in  States,  which  accom- 
panies degradation  in  the  characters  of  its  citizens,  are 
very  salutary  for  us  at  the  present  time.  Perhaps  he  is  also 
sound  in  thinking  that  though  economic  questions  are 
true  causes  of  revolutions,  they  are  not  the  main  causes. 
Whether  he  is  right  in  holding  that  democracy  necessarily 
means  disintegration,  a  condition  in  which  the  citizen  may 
choose  to  be  at  peace  when  his  country  is  at  war,  and  to 
disobey  laws  which  he  does  not  like,  may  be  doubtful  to 
some  of  us.  At  any  rate  he  has  put  his  finger  on  one  of  the 
weaknesses  of  that  form  of  government.  He  is  even  more 
concerned  with  the  '  injustice '  of  treating  unequals  as  equals, 
and  of  committing  power  to  those  who  are  unfit  to  exercise 
it.  These  in  fact  tend  to  be  the  '  stinged  drones,'  a  pestilent 
class  of  men,  who  show  the  majority  how  to  pillage  the 
minority,  and  take  good  care  of  themselves.  The  end  of 
chaos  is  a  military  monarchy  ;  and  Plato  shows  how  the 
autocrat  is  driven  to  a  warlike  policy.  In  modern  times 
too,  the  autocrat  must  not  allow  his  people  to  suspect 
that  the  bayonets  are  there  to  keep  them  in  subjection  : 
he  must  persuade  them  first  that  they  are  necessary  as  a 


94  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

protection  against  aggressive  neighbours,  and  then  that 
they  procure  for  the  country  glory  and  wealth. 

One  question,  to  which  the  majority  of  men  are  far  from 
indifferent,  remains  :  Are  the  citizens  of  a  good  State 
happy,  and  are  the  citizens  of  a  bad  State  unhappy  ? 
Plato  has  not  much  difficulty  in  proving  that  the  life  of  the 
autocrat  is  unhappy  ;  but  are  the  guardians  of  the  ideal 
State  happy,  and  how  about  the  other  classes  ?  He  is  too 
honest  to  be  content  with  the  shallow  Emersonian  doctrine 
that  '  the  thief  steals  from  himself ' ;  so  that  a  system  of 
perfect  compensation  exists  in  this  world.  In  the  last  book 
of  the  '  Republic '  he  is  driven  to  estimate  pleasure  qualita- 
tively and  not  quantitatively,  and  to  conclude  that  it  is 
only  sub  specie  aeternitatis  that  justice  is  done.  The  whole 
argument  of  the  treatise  thus  rests  at  last  on  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,  as  it  does  in  Christianity. 

It  would  take  too  long  to  compare  the  political  philo- 
sophy of  the  later  dialogues  with  that  of  the '  Republic.'  In 
the  '  Statesman,'  he  seems  to  think  that  the  best  practicable 
polity  is  something  very  like  that  of  Germany  under  the 
Kaisers.  The  monarch  is  to  have  unlimited  power,  in 
theory ;  but  his  duty  is  to  act  as  mediator  between  the  con- 
flicting forces  in  the  nation,  as  a  neutral  and  independent 
arbiter.  He  will  take  note  of  changes  in  the  body 
politic,  of  the  emergence  of  new  classes  and  the  depression 
of  old  ;  and  will  try  to  govern  wisely  and  justly  as  the 
representative  of  the  spirit  of  the  nation.  Our  quarrel  with 
Germany,  and  the  consequent  downfall  of  the  monarchy 
there,  must  not  blind  us  to  the  fact  that  before  the  war 
that  country  was  the  best  governed  in  Europe.  The 
'  Statesman '  also  shows  a  change  in  Plato's  attitude 
towards  the  laws.  Laws  are  mainly  necessary  to  protect 
the  ruled  against  the  rulers,  and  therefore  they  ought  not 
to  be  necessary  at  all ;  but  as  things  are,  they  are  necessary 
and  must  be  treated  with  respect.  In  the  '  Laws  '  he  goes 
further  in  accepting  the  reign  of  law  as  a  necessity,  though 
he  never  deviates  from  his  conviction  that  it  is  a  pis  aller, 
as  Christ  said  that  parts  of  the  Mosaic  Law  were  instituted 
'  because  of  the  hardness  of  your  hearts.'  In  the  age  of 
gold  the  government  was  theocratic.  Out  of  possible  forms 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE        95 

of  government  under  present  conditions,  he  prefers  a  mixed 
government,  not  very  unlike  the  late  lamented  British 
Constitution,  with  elements  (such  as  the  combination  of 
universal  suffrage  with  class  suffrage)  which  suggest  the 
Prussian  constitution,  while  it  existed.  But  he  gravitates 
again  towards  theocracy,  with  religious  persecution  and  a 
Vehmgericht  ominously  called  the  Nocturnal  Council, 
painfully  like  the  Inquisition.  The  closest  parallel  to  the 
State  of  the  '  Laws,'  in  actual  history,  has  been  the  Eoman 
Catholic  Church  in  the  days  of  its  temporal  power.  The 
only  great  difference  is  that  Plato  would  suppress  all  who 
taught  that  the  gods  can  be  bought  off  and  propitiated. 
In  his  State,  therefore,  Catholics  would  fare  as  badly  as  the 
other  two  classes  of  misbelievers  whom  he  will  not  tolerate 
— Atheists  and  (as  we  may  call  them)  Epicureans.  Thus 
the  subject  of  this  lecture  leads  on  to  the  subject  of  the 
next,  though,  as  we  shall  see,  other  elements  entered  into 
the  theory  and  practice  of  the  medieval  Church.  The 
resemblance  is  not  to  be  accounted  for  by  conscious  copying. 
Plato  moulded  all  subsequent  thought  in  antiquity,  and  his 
influence  has  been  equally  great  in  modern  times.  But 
during  the  many  centuries  when  the  Church  was  developing 
its  polity  on  the  lines  of  the  '  Laws,'  the  '  Laws  '  was  entirely 
unknown  in  Western  Europe.  It  is  a  remarkable  testimony 
to  Plato's  political  insight  that  he  predicted,  for  better  and 
for  worse,  the  course  which  a  great  polity  based  on  conse- 
crated authority  must  follow. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  for  our  present  purpose  to 
consider  the  political  theory  of  Aristotle,  since  in  his 
writings  the  relations  of  the  Visible  to  the  Invisible  State 
are  not  a  prominent  subject  of  discussion.  But  it  is  neces- 
sary to  say  something  of  the  Stoics,  who  were  inheritors  of 
one  side  at  least  of  Plato's  later  teaching.  There  is  a 
passage  in  the  tenth  Book  of  the '  Laws '  which  is  strangely 
Stoical  in  tone. 

The  ruler  of  the  universe  has  ordained  all  things  with  a  view 
to  the  excellence  and  preservation  of  the  whole,  and  each  part, 
as  far  as  may  be,  has  an  action  and  passion  appropriate  to  it.  ... 
One  of  these  portions  of  the  universe  is  thine  own,  unhappy 
man,  which,  however  little,  contributes  to  the  whole ;  and  you 


96  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

do  not  seem  to  be  aware  that  this  and  every  other  creation  is 
for  the  sake  of  the  whole,  and  that  the  life  of  the  whole  may  be 
blessed ;  and  that  you  are  created  for  the  sake  of  the  whole, 
and  not  the  whole  for  your  sake.  You  are  vexed  because  you  do 
not  know  that  what  is  best  for  you  happens  to  yourself  and  to 
the  universe,  as  far  as  the  laws  of  the  common  creation  admit.  .  .  . 
O  youth,  who  fancy  that  you  are  neglected  by  the  gods,  know 
that  if  you  become  worse  you  shall  go  to  the  worse  souls,  or  if 
better  to  the  better,  and  in  every  succession  of  life  and  death 
you  will  do  and  suffer  what  like  may  fitly  suffer  at  the  hands 
of  like.  This  is  the  justice  of  Heaven,  which  neither  you  nor 
any  unfortunate  will  ever  glory  in  escaping,  and  which  the 
ordaining  powers  have  specially  ordained ;  take  heed  thereof, 
for  it  will  surely  take  heed  of  you.  If  you  say,  I  am  small  and 
will  creep  into  the  depths  of  the  earth,  or  I  am  high  and  will 
fly  up  to  heaven,  you  are  not  so  small  or  so  high  but  that  you 
shall  pay  the  fitting  penalty,  either  here  or  elsewhere.  ...  So 
all  things  work  together  and  contribute  to  the  great  whole. 

The  universal  sway  of  Providence  is  here  taught  almost  in 
the  very  words  of  the  139th  Psalm. 

This  quotation  may  serve  to  bridge  over  a  gap.  For 
there  is  a  gap,  and  even  a  contrast.  The  Stoics  had  no 
particular  reverence  for  Plato,  and  in  many  ways  were 
much  nearer  his  eccentric  contemporary  Diogenes.  I  am 
giving  the  last  few  minutes  of  this  lecture  to  them  because 
they  were  the  first  to  introduce  into  Greek  thought  the 
idea  of  an  Invisible  State  on  earth,  like  the  Invisible 
Church  on  earth  which  some  Christian  sects  make  much  of. 
The  shattering  of  the  independent  Greek  Commonwealths 
made  way  for  two  complementary  ideas  which  always  go 
together — the  independence  of  the  individual,  and  cosmo- 
politanism. The  two  were  bound  together  in  their  ethics 
in  the  way  adumbrated  by  Plato  in  the  passage  just  quoted 
from  the  '  Laws.'  '  What  is  not  good  for  the  swarm  is  not 
good  for  the  bee.'  '  All  that  happens  to  the  individual  is 
for  the  good  of  the  whole.'  These  two  quotations  are 
from  Marcus  Aurelius.  They  reconciled  the  claims  of 
egoism  and  altruism  by  teaching  that  altruism  is  merely 
the  recognition  of  a  fact — our  membership  one  of  another. 
They  were  far  from  acknowledging  two  orders,  a  natural 
and  a  spiritual.  The  natural  order  contains  in  itself  the 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE       97 

sanction  for  all  moral  duties.  This  is  our  happiness  ;  if 
we  will  that  which  is,  we  shall  will  what  ought  to  be,  and 
what  we  ought  to  will.  '  Zeus,'  says  Epictetus,  '  has  made 
the  nature  of  the  rational  animal  such  that  it  cannot 
obtain  any  good  proper  to  itself,  unless  it  contribute  some- 
thing to  the  common  interest.  In  this  way,  it  is  not  un- 
social for  a  man  to  do  everything  for  the  sake  of  his  own 
interest.'  And  again  :  '  What  are  you  ?  A  man.  If  you 
look  at  yourself  as  separate  from  other  men,  it  is  according 
to  nature  to  wish  to  live  to  old  age,  to  be  rich,  to  be  healthy. 
But  if  you  look  upon  yourself  as  part  of  a  certain  whole, 
for  the  sake  of  that  whole  it  may  behove  you  to  run  into 
danger,  to  suffer  want,  and  even  to  die  before  your  time.' 
'  You  must  live  for  others  if  you  wish  to  live  for  yourself,' 
says  Seneca.  '  What  I  have  to  consider,'  says  Marcus 
Aurelius,  '  is  my  own  interest ;  and  the  true  interest  of 
everything  is  to  conform  to  its  own  constitution  and  nature. 
My  nature  owns  reason  and  social  obligation  ;  socially,  as 
Antoninus,  my  city  and  my  country  is  Eome  ;  as  a  man,  it 
is  the  world.  These  are  the  societies,  whose  advantage  can 
alone  be  good  for  me.'  One  more  quotation  :  Pliny,  prob- 
ably quoting  Posidonius.  says  :  '  God  is  the  helping  of 
man  by  man,  and  this  is  the  way  to  eternal  glory.' 

What,  then,  is  the  community  of  which  we  form  a  part  ? 
There  is  no  stopping-place  between  the  individual  and  the 
whole  world.  We  belong  to  many  social  organisms,  like 
concentric  circles.  Epictetus  says  :  '  Do  you  not  know, 
that  as  a  foot  alone  is  no  longer  a  foot,  so  you  alone  are  no 
longer  a  man  ?  For  what  is  a  man  ?  A  part  of  a  State — 
first,  that  which  is  made  up  of  gods  and  men  ;  then  that 
which  is  said  to  be  next  to  the  other,  a  small  copy  of  the 
universal  State.'  This  sense  of  common  citizenship  and 
common  membership  with  all  mankind  awoke  for  the  first 
time  a  realisation  ol  the  injustice  of  slavery.  '  Say  you, 
I  have  purchased  these  men  ?  '  says  Seneca.  '  Whither 
are  you  looking  ?  Towards  the  earth,  the  pit,  the  wretched 
laws  of  dead  men.  To  the  laws  of  the  gods  you  are  not 
looking.'  Similarly,  from  the  same  root  proceeded  the 
duty  of  benevolence  and  forgiveness  of  injuries.  We  desire 
to  forgive  and  help  others,  exactly  as  we  forgive  and  help 
n.  B 


98  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

ourselves.  The  inherent  dignity  and  natural  rights  of 
every  individual  were  a  necessary  corollary  from  the  Stoic 
doctrine  of  the  brotherhood  of  all  mankind. 

Reverence  for  natural  or  divine  law  was  reflected  in 
respect  for  human  laws.  Human  laws  are  reflections  of 
the  divine  reason.  And  the  Stoics  endeavoured  to  '  make 
it  so.'  The  wonderful  system  of  Roman  law  was  largely 
their  work.  Plutarch  blames  the  Stoics  for  allowing  no 
authority  to  human  laws  unless  they  agreed  with  ius 
naturae  ;  and  they  probably  did  teach  this.1 

Thus  Greek  political  philosophy  in  its  later  stages 
adapted  itself  to  the  conditions  of  a  world  empire.  It  leapt 
over  the  barriers  of  family,  of  race,  of  city,  of  nationality, 
and  embraced  the  whole  of  mankind  or,  even  further,  the 
entire  cosmos  '  made  up  of  gods  and  men.'  Morality  also 
included  kindness  to  animals.  It  prepared  the  way  for 
the  international  and  cosmopolitan  religions,  in  which  there 
was  neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor 
free.  Its  obedience  to  existing  forms  of  government  was 
only  conditional.  The  system  produced  several  political 
martyrs.  The  ultimate  seal  of  authority  was  within— in 
the  broast  of  the  Stoic  wise  man.  in  which  resided  a  spark 
of  the  divine  nature,  like  the  Funkdein  of  the  medieval 
mystics. 

We  have  thus  seen  that  there  was  a  religious  basis  for 
all  Greek  political  thought.  The  State,  for  the  Greeks,  was 
from  first  to  last  an  ethical  institution,  and  it  was  a 
copy  of  the  City  of  God,  of  which  the  type  is  laid  up  in 
heaven.  The  Stoics  rejected  the  doctrine  of  Ideas  ;  but 
it  was  one  of  them  who  said.  '  The  poet  says,  Dear  City  of 
Cecrops  :  shall  not  I  say,  Dear  City  of  God  ?  ' 

1  Even  the  l);gest :  '  No  consideration  of  civil  right  can  affect 
the  force  of  natural  right.' 


(iii)   THE  MEDIEVAL  IDEAL 

Hebrew  theocracy  and  Greek  political  philosophy  were 
two  of  the  three  factors  which  controlled  the  whole  history 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  are  still  the  dominating  ideas  in 
European  thought.  The  third  is  Koman  imperialism. 
Troeltsch  is  quite  right  when  he  says  that  Catholicism  does 
not  belong  to  the  Middle  Ages,  but  is  the  last  creative 
achievement  of  ancient  civilisation.  It  is  a  theocracy  of  a 
peculiar  type,  determined  by  the  confluence  of  nationalities 
and  of  ideas  which  took  place  as  the  result  of  the  Koman 
Mediterranean  Empire.  Its  connexion  with  the  Galilean 
and  Pauline  Gospel  is  so  far  adventitious  that  if  Christ  had 
never  lived,  we  may  guess  that  a  spiritual  Roman  Empire 
not  very- unlike  the  Catholic  Church  would  have  appeared. 
The  religion  of  Christ  has  a  history ;  but  the  stream  runs 
partly  underground,  and  its  fortunes  are  rather  entangled 
with  than  determined  by  the  great  political  institution 
which  alternately  sheltered  and  repressed  it. 

We  have  seen  how  Plato  traced  the  normal  changes — 
mostly  for  the  worse — which  states  undergo.  The  history 
of  Rome  is  a  drama  in  three  acts.  The  first  is  the  Roman 
Republic,  predominantly  oligarchical  in  type,  but  with 
strong  democratic  elements.  In  spite  of  many  blunders 
and  not  a  few  crimes,  the  old  families  who  decided  the 
policy  of  the  Republic  showed  an  astonishing  degree  of 
political  capacity.  The  system  was  wrecked  from  causes 
which  hardly  came  within  the  purview  of  Plato.  I  referred 
to  them  in  my  first  lecture.  The  first  standing  army, 
with  a  long-service  general,  which  the  Romans  accepted 
most  reluctantly  and  in  dire  necessity,  when  their  existence 
was  threatened  by  a  horde  of  German  barbarians — those 
whom  they  called  Cimbri  and  Teutons — was  the  beginning 
of  the  end  of  the  Roman  Republic.  From  that  time, 
the  professional  army  was  master  of  the  State.  A  long 
series  of  civil  wars  made  the  principate  of  Augustus  in- 
evitable ;  and  the  principate  was  from  the  first  a  carefully 
camouflaged  autocracy.  Tacitus  describes  how  Augustus 


100  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

drew  into  himself  all  the  functions  which  under  the  Re- 
public had  belonged  to  the  magistrates  and  the  laws.  This, 
then,  was  the  beginning  of  the  second  act  in  the  drama — • 
the  Republic  had  given  way  to  an  autocracy.  The  emperor 
or  Princeps,  though  he  kept  up  the  pretence  of  dividing  his 
power  with  the  Senate,  was  really  above  the  law ;  and  if 
he  strained  his  prerogative  unreasonably,  there  was  no 
remedy  except  assassination,  which  always  remains  in  the 
background  to  temper  despotism.  It  is  a  mistake  to 
suppose  that  the  emperors  plotted  to  increase  their  arbitrary 
power,  like  the  Stuarts.  Despotism  was  forced  upon  them 
by  the  circumstances  of  the  age  ;  it  advanced  constantly 
by  the  accumulation  of  precedents,  and  after  the  disap- 
pearance of  the  doctrinaire  republicans,  who  were  usually 
Stoics,  met  with  no  popular  resistance.  The  only  real  force 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  army,  which  soon  began  to  put 
up  and  put  down  puppet  emperors  at  its  will.  This  anarchic 
stage  issued  in  a  cast-iron  despotism  of  the  Oriental  type. 
Diocletian  and  his  successors  had  a  court  like  Persian  or 
Parthian  kings  ;  they  wore  the  diadem,  which  the  Romans 
traditionally  hated  and  despised  ;  they  were  approached 
as  living  gods  with  the  servile  forms  of  adoration  familiar 
to  the  East  and  loathed  in  the  West ;  and  like  the  later 
French  kings  they  kept  a  huge  army  of  parasites  and 
dependents  which  exhausted  the  wealth  of  their  subjects. 
Centralisation  brought  to  an  end  the  cantonal  structure 
which  had  given  a  distinctive  character  to  ancient  culture. 
Society  stiffened  into  castes,  which  more  and  more  tended 
to  become  hereditary.  The  lawyers  developed  a  theory 
of  a  social  contract,  by  which  the  people  had  voluntarily 
placed  their  liberties  in  the  hands  of  a  single  ruler.  More- 
over the  military  basis  of  the  autocracy  was  no  longer 
disguised.  For  the  first  time,  the  sovereign  lived  in  uniform, 
and  the  court  was  officially  called '  the  camp.'  All  provinces 
became  '  imperial '  ;  the  old  aerarium  became  merely  the 
revenue  of  the  town  council  of  Rome.  The  finance  re- 
sembled that  with  which  we  are  now  familiar  in  England — a 
dishonest  mint,  leading  to  a  general  rise  of  prices,  and  then 
frantic  legislation  against  profiteers,  who  were  ordered,  on 
pain  of  death,  to  sell  at  a  loss.  Lactantius  tells  us  that  the 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      101 

number  of  those  who  lived  on  the  taxes  was  as  great  as  the 
number  who  paid  them.  By  a  curious  provision,  the  town 
councillors  were  responsible  for  the  rates,  which  they  could 
not  collect.  They  were  chosen  against  their  will,  usually 
by  patrimony,  and  five  gold  pieces  were  given  to  anyone 
who  could  catch  and  bring  back  a  runaway  town  councillor. 

This  was  the  second  act  in  the  Roman  drama.  The 
third  was  the  Koman  Church,  with  its  rival  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire,  which  was  an  embarrassed  phantom  long 
before  it  was  finally  abolished.  To  this  we  must  now  turn. 
What  was  the  genesis  of  the  political  theory  of  Catholicism  ? 

It  would  take  far  too  long  to  trace  to  its  source  the  idea 
of  '  the  kingdom  of  God '  in  Jewish  speculation  and 
prophecy,  in  the  writings  of  apocalyptists,  and  in  the  New 
Testament  itself.  There  has  been  much  controversy  about 
the  meaning  of  the  word  in  the  Gospels.  Perhaps  the  most 
certain  and  most  significant  facts  which  emerge  from  the 
investigation  are,  first,  that  the  earliest  generation  of 
Christians  believed  that  the  Messiah  was  shortly  to  appear 
to  restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel,  and,  secondly,  that  when 
Jerusalem  was  destroyed  and  the  hope  of  the  Parousia 
vanished  gradually  into  thin  air,  the  religion  of  Christ  was 
discovered  to  stand  on  a  foundation  entirely  independent 
of  Messianism. 

In  the  history  of  Christian  belief,  the  kingdom  of  God 
has  been  interpreted  in  three  different  ways.  It  has  been 
taken  to  mean  the  life  of  the  saved  in  the  presence  of  God 
after  the  Last  Judgment — what  we  usually  call  Heaven. 
It  has  been  taken  to  mean  the  visible  reign  of  Christ  on 
earth  between  His  second  coming  and  the  day  of  judgment — 
the  belief  of  the  so-called  Chiliasts  or  Millenanans.  And, 
thirdly,  it  has  been  identified  with  the  Church  on  earth. 
The  first  and  third  types  of  belief  are  still  strong ;  the 
second  has  almost  disappeared.  But  in  the  second  century 
it  was  strongly  held,  and  predictions  of  the  millennium 
were  put  into  the  mouth  of  Uhrist  Himself.  It  seems  to  be 
true  that  during  the  persecutions,  at  least  before  A.D.  200,  the 
time  when  the  social  life  of  the  Church  was  at  its  very  best, 
the  majority  of  Christians  set  their  hopes  on  a  golden  age 
on  earth  to  be  introduced,  probably  before  very  long,  by  the 


102  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

second  coining  of  Christ.  The  belief  decayed  from  various 
causes,  among  which  may  be  included  the  dislike  of  it 
among  ecclesiastics  and  the  growth  of  a  Christian  philosophy 
with  strong  Neoplatonic  elements.  Chiliasm,  perhaps  we 
may  say,  was  a  survival  of  apocalyptic  Judaism  in  Christi- 
anity. It  spread  chiefly  among  the  uneducated.  But 
another  factor  in  the  decay  of  Chiliasm  was  the  conversion 
of  Constantine,  and  the  Christian  Empire  thus  inaugurated. 
At  once  the  bishops  began  to  refer  everything  to  the 
emperor,  and  to  treat  him  as  a  sacred  being.  The  earthly 
future  of  the  Church  seemed  secure  without  waiting  for  a 
miracle. 

The  acceptance  of  Christianity  by  the  imperial  govern- 
ment was  made  necessary  by  the  complete  failure  of  the 
last  persecution.  The  persecution  itself  was  a  desperate 
attempt  to  destroy  an  imperium  in  imperio,  a  power  which, 
in  a  state  ruled  autocratically,  was  really  as  dangerous 
as  the  government  believed  it  to  be.  The  earlier  persecu- 
tions had  been  much  less  systematic,  and  sometimes 
resembled  pogroms  in  Russia.  The  government  was 
always  very  jealous  of  associations,  as  is  shown  by  Trajan's 
letter  to  Pliny  about  the  proposed  firemen's  union  in 
Bithynia.  But  besides  this,  there  was  even  in  the  second 
century  an  instinctive  feeling  that  the  Church  was  an 
association  of  a  peculiarly  dangerous  type,  as  indeed  it 
was.  Religious  persecution  was  alien  to  Roman  ideas, 
but  the  Christians  were  unpopular,  and  it  pleased  the 
populace,  in  some  places,  to  be  let  loose  upon  them.  The 
persecuting  rulers  in  Diocletian's  time  counted  on  this 
unpopularity,  and  found  that  it  no  longer  existed  in  most 
places.  Their  cruelties  caused  disgust  among  the  Pagans 
themselves  ;  in  fact  it  was  the  Pagan  conscience  which 
obliged  them  to  stop.  After  such  a  defeat,  an  alliance  was 
the  only  possible  way  out.  This  the  Christians  quite 
understood,  and  they  took  Julian's  attempt  to  undo  the 
work  very  calmly.  '  It  will  soon  pass,'  said  Athanasius. 
Theodosius  found  it  wise  to  give  the  bishops  almost  as 
great  powers  as  the  governors  oi  provinces,  thus  inaugurat- 
ing the  Byzantine  type  of  Church-and-State,  which  was 
afterwards  copied  by  Russia. 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      103 

Chiliasm — the  belief  in  a  kingdom  of  God  on  earth  in 
the  future — was  partitioned,  as  it  were,  between  the  visible 
Church  on  earth  and  the  kingdom  of  heaven  beyond  the 
skies.  The  latter  was,  of  course,  envisaged  in  a  widely 
different  manner  by  the  Christian  Platonists,  such  as  the 
Alexandrian  and  Cappadocian  Fathers,  and  by  the  simple 
believers.  But  on  the  whole  it  would  be  true  to  say  that 
the  kingdom  of  God  meant  the  visible  Church  on  earth, 
together  with  the  '  Four  Last  Things.'  Augustine,  who 
began  his  mental  life  as  a  Christian  with  a  partly  spiritu- 
alised Millenarianism,  afterwards  discarded  it,  as  he  tells 
us  explicitly.  '  We  ourselves  were  formerly  of  this  opinion. ' 

The  sack  of  Home  by  Alaric  caused  more  commotion, 
even  in  Christian  circles,  than  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  had  done. 
The  Pagan  charge,  that  the  disaster  had  happened  tempori- 
bus  Christianis,  had  its  sting  in  the  notion,  not  altogether 
ill-founded,  that  the  Christians  set  small  value  on  the 
treasures  of  classical  culture,  and  had  not  bestirred  them- 
selves to  protect  them  from  the  barbarians.  Augustine's 
famous  •  City  of  God,'  a  work  of  permanent  importance  and 
far-reaching  innuence,  was  on  one  side  an  answer  to  this 
accusation,  and  on  another  an  attempt  to  justify  the 
attitude  of  Christians  to  the  Pagan  civilisation.  It  shows, 
among  other  things,  that  Paganism  was  still  very  much 
alive,  at  least  in  the  West. 

It  is  commonly  said  that  Augustine  was  the  first  to 
identify  the  visible  Church  with  the  Kingdom  of  God.  It 
is  true  that  the  identification  was  not  quite  explicitly  made 
by  any  earlier  Christian  writer.  When  the  question  is 
discussed  by  earlier  Church  writers — and  it  is  not  discussed 
very  often — the  usual  language  is  that  the  Church  militant 
is  a  preparation  for  the  Church  triumphant,  a  doctrine  which 
naturally  held  the  field  during  the  reign  of  Millenarianism. 
Augustine  himself  in  his  '  Ketractations '  says  clearly  : 
'Wherever  in  these  books  I  have  spoken  of  the  Church 
as  not  having  spot  or  wrinkle,  it  is  not  to  be  taken  of  the 
Church  as  it  now  exists,  but  of  the  Church  whose  existence 
is  being  prepared/  He  also  distinguishes  between  the  City 
of  God  on  earth,  and  the  civitas  superna  in  heaven,  in 
which  the  Church  on  earth  is  to  find  its  consummation. 


104  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

And  in  one  of  his  treatises  on  the  Fourth  Gospel  he  says  '; 
'  What  could  be  more  senseless  and  presumptuous  than  to 
assert  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  itself  belongs  to  the 
life  in  which  we  now  are  ?  For  though  the  Church  as  it  is 
is  sometimes  called  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  it  is  of  course 
so  called  as  being  gathered  for  the  future  and  eternal  life.' 
There  are,  however,  passages  hi  which  Augustine  might  be 
held  to  have  himself  made  this  identification  which  he 
repudiates  so  strongly.  The  explanation  is  that  he  came 
to  Christianity  through  Platonism,  and  remained  a  Platonist 
even  when  his  ecclesiasticism  was  dragging  him  in  the 
opposite  direction.  He  believed  in  the  Church  or  kingdom 
of  God,  of  which  the  type  is  laid  up  in  heaven,  and  of  which 
the  visible  Church  is  a  copy.  He  found  the  idea  of  a  visible 
Church  firmly  rooted,  and  gathering  strength  for  the 
conflicts  against  heresy  and  schism.  He  glorified  the 
visible  Church  by  depicting  it  as  the  true  likeness,  albeit 
necessarily  imperfect,  of  the  Invisible  Church.  The  Church 
on  earth,  as  a  communio  externa,  contains  good  and  bad  ; 
the  elect  among  its  members  are  already  members  of  the 
communion  of  saints,  which  includes  all,  past,  present,  and 
to  come,  who  are  predestined  to  life  eternal.  He  was 
undoubtedly  reluctant  to  admit  that  some  who  are  not 
included  in  the  former  communion  may  be  admitted  into 
the  latter. 

The  polemic  against  Paganism  led  him  to  develop  the 
theory  of  two  Cities  or  States,  representing  opposite  prin- 
ciples. The  one  is  the  kingdom  of  the  devil,  the  other  the 
kingdom  of  God.  They  differ  in  purpose.  The  earthly 
State  pursues  earthly  peace,  the  heavenly  State  or  City  of 
God  pursues  the  heavenly  peace.  But  the  earthly  State 
is  morally  impotent,  and  is  therefore  reduced  to  pursuing 
its  ends  by  force  or  fraud.  It  cannot  achieve  justice  ;  and 
without  justice  a  great  empire  is  only  grande  latrocinium. 

Does  he  then  identify  the  kingdom  of  the  devil,  the 
earthly  State,  with  the  Roman  Empire,  and  the  City  of 
God  with  the  Catholic  Church  ?  How  is  this  possible, 
when  the  Church  notoriously  includes  so  many  reprobates, 
and  when  the  secular  State  can  point  to  so  many  fine 
characters  among  its  servants  ?  And  does  the  churchman 


105 

owe  no  allegiance  or  respect  to  the  civil  government  ? 
Augustine  was  far  from  holding  this  ;  he  sees  that  the 
two  Cities  not  only  interpenetrate,  but  depend  on  each 
other,  for  the  Church  is  protected  in  its  rights  by  the  State, 
and  the  State  must  borrow  from  the  heavenly  State  the 
moral  principles  without  which  it  could  not  hold  together. 
Indeed,  the  very  existence  of  the  earthly  State  proves  that 
it  is,  in  some  degree,  itself  an  imitation  of  the  heavenly 
City,  since  otherwise,  on  Platonic  principles,  it  could  not 
exist.  For  that  which  is  purely  evil  has  no  substance 
and  no  power.  This  may  seem  to  be,  and  in  fact  is,  a  con- 
tradiction of  the  thesis  that  the  earthly  State  is  a  kingdom 
of  the  devil ;  the  two  ideas  have  different  sources.  But 
the  Platonic  doctrine,  according  to  which  the  earthly  State 
must  be  a  reflection,  however  far  inferior  to  the  original, 
of  the  perfect  or  heavenly  State,  enables  Augustine  to  argue 
that  the  civil  power  is  or  ought  to  be  an  instrument  of  the 
Church.  So  far  from  the  Church  being  a  society  within 
the  Empire,  the  Empire  is  a  society  within  the  Church. 
This  was  a  line  of  thought  which  was  destined  to  have 
strange  developments  during  the  Middle  Ages.  It  became 
the  duty  of  the  State  to  put  down  heresy  and  schism,  and 
to  '  compel  men  to  come  in.'  Thus  Augustine's  Platonism 
prepared  the  way  for  the  medieval  theocracy,  which 
became  much  cruder  and  more  dangerous  when  the  philo- 
sophy which  had  been  its  basis  was  forgotten  or  discredited. 
Augustine  himself  knows  of  no  infallible  organ  of  Church 
authority,  but  only  of  an  infallible  standard,  the  City  of 
God,  of  which  the  type  is  laid  up  in  heaven.  Nevertheless, 
his  conception  of  the  proper  relations  of  Church  and  State — 
of  a  supreme  and  all-embracing  Church  of  which  the  State 
was  to  be  the  secular  arm,  laid  the  foundations  of  Papal 
autocracy.  Government  by  bishops  and  by  councils — 
the  system  which  Augustine  knew — could  never  enable  the 
Church  to  exercise  the  authority  which  he  declared  to  be 
its  due.  This  could  only  be  done  by  turning  the  Church 
into  a  monarchy  like  the  Empire.  And  the  Empire  of  the 
West  was  in  its  death-throes,  ready  to  bequeath  its  tradi- 
tions and  the  prestige  of  its  name  to  the  communio  externa, 
the  earthly  embodiment  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 


106  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

Thus  Augustinianism  buttressed  the  growth  of  the 
Papacy  ;  while  in  the  East  theologians  continued  to  profess 
that '  the  Church  is  not  a  State,'  and  the  Byzantine  Church 
clung  to  the  idea  of  a  Christian  Empire. 

A  comparison  has  often  been  made  between  Augustine's 
'  City  of  God  '  and  the  '  De  Monarchia  '  of  Dante.  For  our 
present  purpose,  which  is  to  form  an  estimate  of  the  third 
and  last  act  in  the  drama  of  Roman  Imperialism,  in  which 
an  attempt  was  made  to  establish  a  world-wide  theocracy 
of  a  peculiar  kind,  the  comparison  should  be  instructive. 
The  Dark  Ages  had  intervened  between  the  two  books — 
that  great  eclipse  of  culture  and  humanity  which  must 
remain  for  all  time  as  a  dread  warning  to  the  facile  and 
complacent  prophets  of  progress  of  the  fate  which  may 
some  day  again  overtake  the  human  race.  If  the  whole 
period  between  Justinian  and  William  the  Conqueror  had 
been  blotted  out  from  our  annals — if  the  human  race  could 
have  skipped  the  half-millennium  which  separates  the  end 
of  classical  antiquity  from  the  beginning  of  medieval 
culture,  can  anyone  say  that  much  of  real  value  would 
have  been  lost  ?  But  one  thing  had  happened.  Augustine's 
dream  of  a  dominating  City  of  God  on  earth  had  been 
tried  ;  it  was  no  longer  in  the  air,  but  a  historical  fact. 
And  the  Papacy,  with  the  help  of  the  most  successful 
forgeries  in  history,  which  were  not  indeed  written  at  Rome, 
but  which  were  deliberately  adopted  and  used  by  Rome, 
had  established  its  claim  to  rule  the  world.  Gregory  the 
Great  had  still  acknowledged  the  complete  supremacy  of 
the  Emperor,  to  whom,  he  declared,  God  had  said  ;  I  have 
entrusted  rny  priests  (including  the  Pope)  to  your  hands.' 
But  in  800  Leo  III  placed  the  Imperial  crown  on  the  head 
of  Charlemagne,  and  the  people  cried  '  Long  live  Charles 
Augustus,  crowned  by  God  himself.'  And  Gregory  VII 
wrote,  '  who  can  doubt  that  the  priests  of  Christ  are  to 
be  regarded  as  the  fathers  and  masters  (magistros)  of 
all  faithful  kings  and  princes  ?  '  At  the  beginning  of 
the  thirteenth  century  Boniface  VIII  issued  a  Bull  in 
which  he  pronounced  that  'it  is  absolutely  necessary  to 
salvation  that  all  human  creatures  should  be  subject  to 
the  Roman  Pontiff.'  This  arrogant  assertion  was  made 


107 

after  the  tide  had  begun  to  turn,  temporarily,  against 
the  Papacy. 

Dante's  argument  may  be  summarised  as  follows. 
The  object  of  secular  monarchy  is  to  establish  liberty  and 
peace,  that  the  human  race  may  make  the  best  of  itself. 
A  single  universal  monarchy  is  necessary  for  the  well-being 
of  the  world;  the  Roman  Empire  was  a  divine  institution. 
The  Komans,  like  the  Jews,  were  ordained  by  God  to  carry 
out  a  great  task  in  the  world — the  Jews  prepared  the  way 
for  the  Gospel,  the  Komans  gave  the  world  its  system  of 
law.  The  Roman  Empire  of  the  West  has  not  come  to  an 
end  ;  Charlemagne  and  his  successors  are  in  the  direct  line 
of  sovereignty  from  Julius  Caesar  and  Augustus.  They  do 
not  derive  their  authority  from  the  Popes ;  the  coronation 
of  Charles  by  the  Pope  was  an  irregular  proceeding.  The 
authority  of  the  Emperor  '  descends  upon  him  without  any 
intermediary,  from  the  fountain-head  of  universal  autho- 
rity.' Man  has  two  objects  to  secure — happiness  in  this 
life,  and  eternal  salvation.  For  these  ends  God  has  insti- 
tuted two  distinct  powers — the  Empire,  to  promote  man's 
temporal  well-being,  and  the  Papacy,  to  ensure  his  happiness 
in  the  next  world.  '  Man  had  need  of  a  two-fold  directive 
power,  according  to  his  two-fold  goal  :  the  Sovereign 
Pontiff  to  lead  the  human  race  to  eternal  life  in  accordance 
with  revealed  truth,  and  the  Emperor  to  direct  him  to 
temporal  felicity  in  accordance  with  philosophic  teaching/ 
Thus  Dante,  giving  voice  to  the  rising  lay  consciousness 
of  Europe,  proclaims  the  divine  source  of  the  State  Visible, 
and  assigns  to  it  the  duty  of  safeguarding  universal  peace, 
and  of  making  men  happy  'according  to  the  teaching  of 
philosophy.'  Without  knowing  it,  he  is  revolting  against 
the  position  of  the  '  De  Civitate  Dei.'  The  Church  is  to 
confine  itself  to  spiritual  affairs,  and  leave  secular  govern- 
ment to  the  Emperor.  This  is  right,  because  temporal 
monarchy  is  itself  inspired  from  'the  citadel  of  all  unity,' 
the  will  of  God.  Thus,  as  Villari  says,  human  society  is 
reconsecrated,  as  that  which  is  willed  by  God  and  necessary 
for  spiritual  life.  In  this,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  Dante 
is  the  champion  of  the  losing  side.  The  Augustinian 
and  Gregorian  conception  of  ecclesiastical  sovereignty 


108  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

prevailed.     One  example,   from    our   own    country,    will 
suffice.     Thomas  a  Becket  writes  to  the  King  of  England  : 

If  you  employ  your  elevation  in  the  interest  of  your  own 
force  and  power  and  not  in  the  interest  of  God,  if  you  do  not 
renounce  your  designs  against  the  property  and  persons  of 
ecclesiastics,  He  who  has  raised  you  will  demand  an  account 
of  the  talents  which  He  has  given  you,  and  like  Rehoboam,  son 
of  Solomon,  who  was  deposed  for  his  father's  faults,  He  will 
make  your  heirs  pay  for  yours. 

Again  : 

The  Church  is  composed  of  two  orders,  clergy  and  people. 
The  people  include  kings,  princes,  dukes  and  counts.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  the  kings  have  received  their  power  from  the  Church. 
Princes  ought  to  bow  their  heads  before  bishops,  and  not  to 
command  them. 

The  'De  Monarchia,'  as  Bishop  Robertson  says,  was  at 
once  the  epitaph  of  a  dead  ideal  and  the  prophecy  of  a 
more  glorious  future. 

The  development  of  the  Roman  polity  into  a  pure 
autocracy  has  proceeded  on  the  whole  steadily  and  regu- 
larly. Episcopal  power  had  culminated  in  the  tenth 
century  ;  from  that  time  the  Papacy  gained  ground  at  the 
expense  of  the  bishops.  The  title  '  Vicar  of  Christ '  was  first 
used  by  Innocent  III  (1198-1216).  Boniface  VIII  is  said  to 
have  died  of  vexation  at  the  rebuffs  which  his  pretensions 
received  ;  and  no  doubt  from  the  point  of  view  of  secular 
politics  his  fears  were  justified.  The  time  was  passing 
when  the  Pope  could  dispose  of  crowns  at  his  will.  The 
captivity  at  Avignon  was  followed  by  the  Renaissance, 
the  Renaissance  by  the  Reformation.  The  eighteenth 
century  secularised  the  idea  of  power  ;  the  nineteenth 
swept  away  the  remains  of  the  temporal  power.  But 
beneath  the  surface  a  new  transformation  of  the  Papacy 
into  an  absolutist  theocracy  went  on  steadily. 

The  dogma  of  Papal  infallibility  was  the  logical  con- 
clusion of  the  whole  policy  of  Rome  for  many  centuries. 
At  the  Council  of  Trent  the  Church  was  declared  to  be  the 
only  interpreter  of  Scripture,  and  tradition  was  like  another 
Scripture,  as  it  had  been  under  the  Rabbis.  It  was  in  vain 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      109 

to  quote  Tertullian,  *  Dominus  noster  Veritatem  se  non 
Consuetudinem  cognominavit.'  Augustine  could  already 
declare  :  '  I  should  not  believe  in  the  Gospel  but  for  the 
authority  of  the  Church  ' — a  sentence  which  no  doubt  does 
great  injustice  to  himself.  Tradition  had  to  be  harnessed, 
like  Scripture.  The  Pope  alone  could  interpret  it  authori- 
tatively ;  so  that  Pius  IX  could  say,  '  /  am  tradition/ 
But  infallibility  could  hardly  be  made  into  a  dogma  till  the 
temporal  power  had  been  abolished.  It  is  most  awkward 
to  divinise  a  living  man,  above  all  a  personal  ruler,  who 
probably  makes  as  many  mistakes  as  other  people.  Victor 
Emmanuel  and  Garibaldi  really  relieved  the  Papacy  of  a 
hampering  burden.  The  scandal  of  the  '  Babylonish 
captivity,'  when  there  were  three  rival  Popes,  was  not 
henceforth  likely  to  recur.  And  as  the  Pope  had  become 
an  almost  invisible  Grand  Lama,  adulation  of  him  could 
be  pushed  to  the  furthest  limits  without  being  palpably 
ridiculous.  I  have  in  my  hands  a  French  sermon  printed 
a  few  years  before  the  war,  which  received  flattering  notice 
from  the  preacher's  superiors.  It  is  entitled  '  Devotion  to 
the  Pope.'  The  text,  slightly  garbled,  is  from  Mark  xii. 
30,  '  Thou  shalt  love  Mm  with  all  thy  mind,  with  all  thy 
will,  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  strength.'  The 
preacher  says  (I  quote  his  own  words) : 

The  Pope  is  Jesus  Christ  on  earth.  Except  the  mystery 
of  the  Real  Presence,  nothing  brings  us  nearer  to  the  presence 
of  God  than  the  sight  or  even  the  thought  of  the  Vicar  of  Jesus 
Christ.  We  ought  to  love  him,  in  a  minor  degree,  like  God 
Himself.  As  the  Tabernacle  is  the  abode  of  Jesus  the  Victim, 
so  the  Vatican  is  the  abode  of  Jesus  the  Teacher ;  it  is  from 
this  place,  or  rather  sanctuary,  that  since  His  ascension  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Divine  Word,  speaks  to  the  world.  What  a  beauti- 
ful parallel  is  this  !  When  we  bow  ourselves  before  the  Taber- 
nacle containing  the  sacred  elements,  we  adore  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  in  His  eucharistic  presence  which  is  a  substantial  and 
personal  presence ;  when  we  fall  at  the  feet  of  the  Pope,  it  is 
still  in  a  manner  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  whom  we  adore  in  His 
doctrinal  presence.  In  both  cases  we  adore  and  confess  the 
same  Christ  Jesus.  From  which  it  follows,  by  a  rigorous  con- 
sequence, that  it  is  as  impossible  to  be  a  good  Christian  without 
devotion  to  the  Pope  as  without  devotion  to  the  Eucharist. 


110  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

Therefore,  let  us  think,  judge,  speak,  like  Rome :  let  us  write, 
as  M.  Brunetiere,  of  the  French  Academy,  wrote  in  1900 :  '  As 
to  what  I  believe,  go  and  ask  at  Rome.  In  matters  of  dogma  or 
morals,  I  have  only  to  assure  myself  of  the  authority  of  the 
Church.'  Yes !  we  have  only  to  say  with  King  David,  '  I  be- 
came dumb  and  opened  not  my  mouth,  for  it  was  thy  doing.' 
What  conformity  of  views,  what  harmony  of  action,  will  then 
reign  between  the  Pope  and  all  the  children  of  Holy  Church  ! 

I  have  chosen  this  sermon  as  typical  of  the  language  which 
is  now  addressed  to  the  Pope.  It  is,  you  see,  an  almost 
complete  apotheosis  :  the  Pope  is  no  longer  a  man,  but  a 
symbol,  an  idol.  This  degree  of  divinisation  is  incom- 
patible with  the  exercise  of  personal  independent  power  : 
a  God  on  earth  must  be  a  prisoner,  and  in  practice  is  prob- 
ably very  much  in  the  hands  of  his  council,  since  he  is  cut 
off  from  opportunities  of  seeing  and  hearing  for  himself. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  such  utterances  as 
that  which  I  have  read  are  insincere:  there  is  real 
enthusiasm  for  the  Papacy  as  a  system  of  government,  for 
the  idea  of  order,  unanimity,  military  obedience,  with  the 
force  and  efficiency  which  belong  to  it.  In  the  unutterably 
shallow  political  thought  of  our  time,  it  is  assumed  that  the 
subjects  of  an  autocracy  are  unwilling  subjects,  that  they 
crave  for  the  blessings  of  democracy.  In  many  cases  they 
desire  nothing  of  the  kind  ;  they  obey  willingly  and  are  very 
glad  to  be  relieved  of  responsibility.  Loyalty  to  a  single 
man,  representing  an  idea,  is  the  strongest  kind  of  loyalty 
that  exists.  There  is  far  more  loyalty  to  the  Catholic 
Church  in  France  than  to  the  Republic  :  though  love  of 
la  patrie  is  shared  by  nearly  all  Frenchmen.  But  we 
do  great  injustice  to  the  Catholic  polity  if  we  regard  it  as 
a  religion,  instead  of  as  a  form  of  State.  It  is  essentially 
the  latter,  and  only  incidentally  the  former.  But  it  is  a 
State  which  desires  to  be,  like  the  ancient  Greek  States, 
an  ethical  association,  existing  that  its  members  may  '  live 
well.'  The  ideal  is  a  high  one  ;  it  is  an  attempt  to  carry 
into  practice  the  kind  of  State  which  Plato  sketched  out  in 
his  Dialogues. 

But  on  the  whole  it  can  hardly  be  denied  that  it  has 
been  a  failure.  It  does  not  seem  to  have  raised  the  moral 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      111 

tone  of  society  in  the  countries  which  have  adopted  it, 
except  perhaps  in  such  Arcadian  communities  as  Ober- 
Ammergau,  and  in  some  very  limited  circles  living  an  old- 
fashioned  life  under  priestly  direction.  It  has  shown  all 
the  defects  of  despotism — a  costly  and  luxurious  central 
government,  necessitating  heavy  taxation,  and  the  ruthless 
suppression  of  all  movements  towards  freedom.  This  kind 
of  oppression  is  peculiarly  searching  and  tyrannical  under 
a  theocracy,  because  it  lays  its  hands  not  only  on  overt  acts, 
but  upon  all  liberty  of  thought.  To  think  for  oneself  in 
matters  which  concern  our  eternal  interests  is  rebellion  or 
treason.  The  faithful  are  forbidden  to  read  certain  books, 
and  to  join  certain  societies ;  they  must  submit  their 
consciences  to  periodical  examination  by  an  official ;  the 
education  of  their  children  is  taken  out  of  their  hands  and 
is  strictly  regulated  by  the  hierarchy.  An  acute  conflict  of 
loyalties  is  set  up  between  Church  and  State  :  no  Catholic 
is  more  than  conditionally  a  patriot,  and  the  conditions 
are  of  the  political,  not  of  the  moral  order.  In  my  first 
lecture  I  mentioned  the  evil  effects  of  placing  all-  moral 
conduct  under  the  rule  of  authority.  Conscience  is  stifled  ; 
and  the  Catholic  is  curiously  impervious  to  that  lay- 
morality  which  with  all  its  defects  generally  embodies  the 
best  features  of  a  national  character.  These  defects  are  of 
course  not  in  any  way  connected  with  the  Christian  religion  ; 
they  are  the  defects  of  theocratic  autocracy  in  its  Catholic 
form,  and  illustrate  some  of  the  difficulties  of  establishing 
a  Platonic  State  in  working  order.  The  experiment  is 
not  played  out ;  it  may  even  have  a  great  future  if,  as  is 
probable,  the  present  riot  of  nationalism  is  followed  by  a 
struggle  between  two  or  more  types  of  internationalism. 
But  it  has  certainly  not  solvod  the  problem  of  human 
government. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  to  say  much  about  the  other 
universal  State  which  made  up  the  medieval  theory  of 
world-government.  We  have  seen  from  Augustine  how 
natural  it  was  for  those  who  followed  his  line  of  thought  to 
assume  a  natural  dualism  of  the  spiritual  and  secular 
power.  And  the  quotations  from  Dante's  '  De  Monarchia  ' 
have  shown  how,  at  least  for  a  supporter  of  the  cause  of 


112  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

the  Empire  against  that  of  the  Popes,  the  Roman  Empire 
might  receive  the  epithet  '  holy.'  But  it  is  strange  how 
natural  it  was  to  medieval  thinkers  to  assume  that  there 
must  be  only  one  Pope  and  one  Emperor.  Engelbert, 
about  1330,  summed  up  the  accepted  medieval  theory 
on  the  subject  when  he  said  :  '  There  is  only  one  Republic 
of  the  whole  Roman  people,  and  therefore  there  must  be 
only  one  prince  and  king.'  It  is  both  amusing  and  instruc- 
tive that  the  Turkish.  Sultan  refused  to  acknowledge 
Charles  V  as  Emperor,  because  there  could  be  only  one 
Emperor  of  Rome,  and  Solyman  the  Magnificent  was  he. 
There  is  something  rather  splendid  in  the  power  which  this 
idea  of  unity  had  to  dominate  the  mind  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
These  barbarians,  as  we  think  them,  were  possessed  by 
a  purely  metaphysical  doctrine  of  the  branching  out  of  all 
multiplicity  from  unity,  and  of  the  brotherhood  of  the 
human  race  through  the  participation  by  all  men  in  the 
general  concept  of  humanity.  The  Divine  Unity  was 
represented  on  earth  by  a  duality — a  world  priest  and  a 
world  monarch.  The  universal  Church  and  the  universal 
State  were  correlative  conceptions,  and  when  even  the 
shadow  of  the  latter  passed  away,  it  was  a  heavy  blow  to 
the  former.  The  two  Empires  were  rivals  rather  than 
enemies,  and  acknowledged  their  need  of  each  other.  As 
early  as  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries,  when  the  Western 
Empire  had  only  lately  fallen,  the  Church  makes  repeated 
efforts  to  resuscitate  the  Empire  ;  it  entreats  the  barbarian 
kings  to  make  themselves  Roman  Emperors,  and  to  enter 
into  the  same  relations  with  the  Church  which  the  Emperors 
had  maintained.  The  claim  to  universal  dominion  was  a 
serious  weakness  to  the  Empire,  preventing  a  strong  national 
government  in  Germany ;  and  before  long  the  Papacy 
began  to  claim  a  feudal  supremacy  over  the  Emperor,  and 
grasped  both  the  '  two  swords.'  The  Papacy  was  the  sun, 
the  Empire  the  moon.  In  fact,  the  Empire  became  an 
Idea  even  more  than  the  Papacy  ;  it  was  venerated,  in  its 
actual  helplessness,  as  the  symbol  and  guarantee  of  a  real 
league  of  nations.  As  Bryce  says,  '  Both  Empire  and 
Papacy  rested  on  opinion  rather  than  on  physical  force, 
and  when  the  struggle  of  the  eleventh  century  came,  the 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      113 

Empire  fell,  because  its  rival's  hold  over  the  souls  of  men 
was  firmer,  more  direct,  and  enforced  by  penalties  more 
dreadful  than  the  death  of  the  body.'  Both  were  in  a 
sense  ghosts  of  the  Roman  Empire  ;  but  the  Papacy  was 
the  more  substantial  ghost  of  the  two.  Both  were  glaring 
anachronisms  ;  but  one  of  them  still  survives,  strong  in  the 
knowledge,  usually  forgotten  by  its  rivals, .  that  human 
nature  changes  not,  and  that  the  thing  that  hath  been  is 
the  thing  that  shall  be.  Some  have  said  that  human 
beings  are  not  moved  by  abstractions  ;  the  truth  is  that 
they  are  seldom  moved  by  anything  else. 

Since  it  was  Napoleon  who  banished  to  limbo  the 
bloodless  shade  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  we  may 
pause  for  a  moment  to  ask  what  his  own  idea  of  the 
relations  of  Church  and  State  was.  When  he  was  ex- 
communicated by  the  Pope,  he  sent  a  message  to  the 
French  bishops,  reminding  them  of  the  words  of  Christ : 
'  Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's,  and  to 
God  the  things  that  are  God's.'  The  Papacy  was  denied 
the  right  to  divert  any  Frenchmen  from  their  allegiance 
to  the  Emperor.  At  St.  Helena  he  unfolded  his  dream 
of  Caesaro-Papism. 

I  should  have  exalted  the  position  of  the  Pope  without 
measure  ;  I  should  have  surrounded  him  with  pomp  and  homage  ; 
I  should  have  brought  him  to  cease  from  regretting  his  temporal 
power ;  I  should  have  made  an  idol  of  him.  I  should  have 
made  him  live  near  me  :  Paris  would  thenceforth  have  been  the 
capital  of  the  Christian  world.  I  should  have  been  the  director 
of  the  religious  no  less  than  of  the  political  world. 

The  following  reflections  on  the  nature  of  the  medieval 
theocracy  may  help  to  make  the  subject  of  this  lecture 
clearer.  Medieval  thought,  as  Gierke  says,  regarded  the 
universe  as  an  articulated  whole,  and  everything  in  it  as 
both  a  part  and  a  whole.  The  world  is  a  cosmos,  a 
divinely  instituted  harmony.  And,  in  accordance  with 
the  Neoplatonic  philosophy,  the  higher  principle  is  not 
divided  up  when  it  '  comes  down  '  in  its  creative  power 
to  give  life  and  order  to  the  lower  ranks  of  being.  It  is 
present  everywhere  in  its  entirety,  though  enfeebled  to  a 


114  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

greater  or  less  degree  in  its  operation,  from  its  admixture 
with  lower  existences.  Therefore  every  institution,  and 
even  every  individual,  is  a  microcosm  or  minor  mundus. 
God,  the  absolutely  One,  is  above  the  plurality  of  the 
world,  the  source  and  also  the  goal  of  every  living  being. 
Hence  the  lex  aeterna,  the  eternal  law  of  God,  permeates 
all  the  apparent  multiplicity  of  the  world.  '  All  multi- 
tude,' it  was  said,  '  is  derived  from  the  One,  and  is  brought 
back  to  the  One  ' ;  in  other  words,  all  order  consists  in 
the  subordination  of  plurality  to  unity.  The  heavenly 
bodies  have  their  unity  in  the  primum  mobile.  So  in 
societies  there  must  be  a  union  regens  in  every  whole. 

Mankind,  too,  is  a  mystical  body,  an  universitas,  an 
ecclesia  universalis,  a  respublica  generis  humani.  Yet  there 
was  also,  as  we  have  seen,  a  dualism  of  spiritual  and 
temporal,  just  as  in  experience  we  cannot  transcend  the 
duality  of  subject  and  object,  of  voCs  and  voyrov.  There 
were  disputes,  as  I  have  said,  about  the  Two  Swords.  The 
Imperialists  said  that  one  sword  was  theirs.  William  of 
Ockham  even  boldly  argues  that  if  there  is  only  one  head 
of  all  mankind,  it  must  be  the  Emperor.  But  by  both 
parties  alike  the  dualism  was  held  to  be  somehow  not 
ultimate.  The  medieval  principle  of  unity  repudiated  any 
possibility  of  cleavage  within  either  Church  or  Empire. 
Yet  it  found  room  for  more  or  less  independent  States 
under  the  vaulted  dome  of  world-unity,  and  each  State 
was  an  universal  State  in  little,  a  minor  mundus.  Thus  it 
might  be  argued  that  each  State  could  only  realise  its 
proper  nature  by  being  complete  in  itself.  Nicolas  of 
Cusa  argued  that  the  Church  and  Empire  are  inseparable 
and  interdependent,  like  soul  and  body,  under  the  unity 
of  the  Spirit :  and  parallels  were  drawn,  following  Dionysius 
the  Areopagite,  between  the  spiritual  and  terrestrial  hier- 
archies. The  analogy  of  the  bodily  organs  was  also  drawn 
upon.  John  of  Salisbury  anticipates  Herbert  Spencer  in 
finding  some  organ  of  the  body  to  match  each  function 
of  the  State.  Every  permanent  human  group  is  a  '  natural 
and  organic  body  ' — even  a  '  mystical  body.'  Here  we 
have  a  philosophical  basis  for  the  new  Guild  Socialism  if 
our  latter-day  medievalists  cared  to  use  it.  The  '  social 


organism  '  is  a  thoroughly  medieval  idea,  and  is  drawn 
out  very  ably  by  Nicolas  of  Cusa  in  his  '  Cosmic  Harmony.' 
This  organic  theory,  resulting,  as  they  said,  in  social 
health  and  '  tranquillity,'  when  properly  observed,  is  in 
many  ways  vastly  superior  to  the  disintegrating  '  Ideas 
of  1789.'  Marsilius  of  Padua  argued  that  the  Reason 
inherent  in  every  community  engenders  the  social  organism 
by  a  conscious  imitation  of  the  life-making  forces  of 
Nature.  This,  again,  is  a  thoroughly  Neoplatonic  doctrine. 
It  is  easy  to  see  how  this  philosophy  led  to  monarchy 
and  the  rule  of  one  in  every  society.  It  is  instructive  to 
observe  how  Chapters  of  Canons  put  one  of  their  own 
number  over  all  the  rest,  with  a  double  share  of  every- 
thing— the  Dean,  and  how  in  the  later  foundations  the 
Dean  has  more  power  than  in  the  earlier.  But  it  must 
be  strongly  insisted  on,  since  it  is  not  generally  known, 
that  medieval  theory  left  no  room  for  the  lawless  rule 
of  mere  caprice  or  arbitrary  will.  The  medieval  king,  or 
even  Pope,  was  not  and  could  not  be  a  '  tyrant '  in  the 
sense  in  which  Plato  and  Aristotle  use  the  word.  Monarchy 
is  a  relationship  involving  reciprocal  rights  and  duties. 
Lordship  is  never  mere  right  without  obligation.  The 
duty  of  unconditional  obedience  was  not  taught  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  We  are  to  obey  God  rather  than  man,  if 
the  two  duties  clash.  Consequently,  the  doctrine  of  the 
Schoolmen  was  that  '  in  the  court  of  conscience  there  is 
no  obligation  to  obey  an  unjust  law'  —  a  most  important 
principle,  whether  it  is  right  or  wrong. 

It  was  the  greatest  and  most  masterful  of  the  Popes, 
Innocent  III,  who  laid  down  in  memorable  words  which  are  em- 
bodied in  the  great  collection  of  the  Decretals,  that  if  a  Christian 
man  or  woman  is  convinced  in  his  own  mind  and  conscience 
that  it  would  be  a  mortal  sin  to  do,  or  leave  undone,  some  action, 
he  must  follow  his  conscience  even  against  the  command  of 
the  authorities  of  the  Church  ;  for  it  may  well  happen  that  the 
Church  may  condemn  him  whom  God  approves,  and  approve 
him  whom  God  condemns.1 

It  is  surprising  to  find  that  tyrannicide  is  not  infre- 
quently justified  by  medieval  casuists,  very  explicitly  by 
1  Marvin,  Progress  and  History,   p.  80, 


116  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

John  of  Salisbury.  Mariana,  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
committed  the  Jesuits  to  a  justification  of  tyrannicide, 
and  even,  in  certain  circumstances,  of  regicide.  Aquinas 
speaks  with  reserve  :  tyrants  ought  to  be  deposed.  Of 
course  the  Popes  sometimes  claimed  unconditional  power, 
but  only  as  part  of  their  claim  to  be  infallible  organs  of 
the  Divine  will ;  the  theory  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  as 
has  been  stated. 

It  was  also  frequently  maintained  that  the  will  of  the 
people  is  the  source  of  temporal  power.  This  certainly 
seems  inconsistent  with  the  theory  that  all  power  comes 
from  above.  It  was,  I  think,  a  survival  of  the  democratic 
legal  theory  of  the  Roman  Empire,  which  stands  in  curious 
contrast  with  the  actual  constitution. 

When  one  considers  [says  Prof.  Hearnshaw]  how  completely 
impotent  the  people  were  in  fact,  there  are  few  passages  in 
Pioman  legal  literature  more  remarkable  than  that  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Institutes  of  Justinian,  which  runs  :  '  The 
will  of  the  emperor  has  the  force  of  law ;  for  the  people  by  an 
enactment  called  the  lex  regia  grants  to  him  all  its  authority 
and  power.' 

The  passage  is  said  to  be  a  quotation  from  Ulpian.  Thus 
throughout  the  Middle  Ages  there  was  a  democratic  as 
well  as  an  absolutist  or  theocratic  theory  of  the  source  of 
authority,  a  theory  resting  on  the  fiction  cf  a  contract 
between  the  ruler  and  the  ruled.  In  the  election  of 
emperors  the  legal  theory  was  that  the  electors  represented 
their  subjects.  Even  the  Papacy,  which  derived  its  sacred 
authority  from  the  Deity,  always  remained  elective  :  the 
last  rivet  in  the  chain  of  autocracy,  that  of  allowing  a 
Pope  to  nominate  his  successor,  has  never  been  fixed. 
Papal  elections  were  in  a  sense  a  vindication  of  the  rights 
of  the  people,  of  the  Church  as  the  congregation  of  the 
faithful.  A  General  Council  might  depose  a  Pope  for 
heresy,  under  the  fiction  that  a  heretical  Pope  has  ipso 
facto  ceased  to  be  Pope.  Ockham,  bold  as  ever  against 
the  Popes,  thought  that  even  the  laity  might  punish  a 
heretical  Pope. 

Above  all,  State  law  was  the  ius  naturale  (with  the 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      117 

ius  divinum  and  ius  commune  gentium,  which  protected 
rights  of  property,  contracts,  the  right  to  live,  and  so 
forth).1  The  idea  that  the  State  is  above  all  law,  free 
from  all  moral  and  natural  law,  was  a  shocking  innovation 
of  Machiavelli,  and  its  adoption  by  philosophers  and 
statesmen  in  modern  times  is  the  most  grievous  falling 
off  that  I  know  from  the  standards  of  the  despised  Middle 
Ages.  No  doubt  the  appeal  to  '  natural  law  '  against 
unjust  State-legislation  might  prepare  the  way  for  revolu- 
tions, as  indeed  it  often  has  done.  It  is  the  natural 
refuge  of  the  individual  against  a  persecuting  State  ;  and 
it  has  been  used  quite  consistently  by  the  democrats  at 
the  time  of  the  French  Revolution,  by  Chartists  and  others 
against  the  capitalistic  regime,  and  by  Conservatives 
against  the  socialistic  governments  of  our  own  day.  The 
Middle  Ages  taught  quite  clearly  that  there  is  no  legitimate 
government  which  is  not  just,  and  which  does  not  make 
for  justice,  whether  it  is  the  government  of  the  One  or 
the  iViany.  But  the  seventeenth  century,  in  the  persons 
of  James  I  and  Louis  XIV,  taught  that  the  king  can  do 
no  wrong,  and  their  successors  lost  their  heads.  Hegel 
and  his  disciples  in  Germany  taught  that  the  State  can  do 
no  wrong,  and  plunged  the  world  in  war.  Our  doctrinaire 
democrats  teach  that  the  majority  can  do  no  wrong,  and 
they  bid  fair  to  wreck  our  civilisation  completely. 

The  origin  of  the  '  divine  right  of  kings  '  has  been  found 
in  Gregory  the  Great,  and  in  some  rash  phrases  of  Augustine. 
It  was  upheld  by  Ockham  and  Wycliffe,  on  the  lines  of 
Dante's  •  De  Monarchia.'  When  Sir  F.  Pollock  says  that 
it  was  '  not  rational,  nor  ingenious,  nor  even  ancient,'  we 
have  to  remember  that  the  notion  of  a  king-god  is  very 
ancient,  and  that  the  maxim  '  rex  est  mixta  persona  cum 
sacerdote  '  is  of  respectable  antiquity.  It  is  true,  how- 
ever, that  the  Middle  Ages  had  no  conception  of  absolute 
sovereignty  ;  '  Law  '  was  always  above  the  king.  The 
seventeenth-century  royalists  were  the  first  to  put  the 
king  above  the  law  ;  they  had  the  modern  notion  that 
ultimate  power  must  be  vested  in  someone,  just  as  the 

1  Ihe  ius  nalurale  and  the  ius  gentium  did  not  always  agree,  e.g. 
slavery  was  contrary  to  the  former,  but  accepted  by  the  latter. 


118  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

Popes  had  begun,  a  good  deal  earlier,  to  claim  '  plenitude 
potestatis.'  These  royalists  accused  the  Jesuits  of  the 
murder  of  Charles  I,  and  coupled  with  them  the  dissenters, 
as  advocates  of  the  right  of  resistance.  In  this  extreme 
form  the  doctrine  was  never  held  by  the  Tudors,  whose 
subjects  accepted  their  despotic  rule  because  they  wanted 
no  more  wars  of  succession,  and  no  more  Papal  extortions. 
Knox  did  his  best  to  teach  James  I  the  limits  of  kingly 
power.  '  No  oath  or  promise  can  bind  the  people  to  obey 
and  maintain  tyrants  against  God ;  and  if  they  have 
ignorantly  chosen  such  as  after  declare  themselves 
unworthy,  most  justly  may  they  depose  and  punish 
them.'  This  would  not  have  shocked  medieval  casuists 
at  all.  Queen  Victoria,  by  the  way,  once  asked  Sir  William 
Harcourt  whether  he  thought  subjects  were  ever  justified 
in  deposing  their  sovereigns — a  terrible  question  from  that 
very  formidable  old  lady.  He  replied  :  '  I  am  too  loyal 
a  subject  oi  the  House  of  Hanover  to  say  Never.'  James  I 
not  only  held  a  novel  and  untenable  view  of  his  preroga- 
tive, but  was  fool  enough  to  put  it  in  a  book. 

A  good  king  [he  wrote]  will  frame  all  his  actions  according 
to  the  law  ;  yet  he  is  not  bound  thereto  but  of  his  good  will 
and  for  good  example  to  his  subjects.  He  is  master  over  every 
person,  having  power  over  life  and  death.  For  though  a  just 
prince  will  not  take  the  life  of  any  of  his  subjects  without  a  clear 
law,  yet  the  same  laws  whereby  he  taketh  them  are  made  by  him- 
self or  his  predecessors.  The  wickedness  of  the  king  can  never 
make  them  that  are  ordained  to  be  judged  by  him,  to  become 
his  judges. 

A  wicked  king  is  sent  by  God  to  punish  his  people, 
and  '  patience,  earnest  prayer,  and  amendment  of  life  are 
the  only  lawful  means  to  move  God  to  relieve  them  of 
that  heavy  curse.'  He  also  told  the  Commons  that 
'kings  are  judges  over  all  their  subjects  and  in  all  cases, 
yet  accountable  to  none  but  God.  They  have  power  to 
make  of  their  subjects  like  men  at  chess.'  The  Anglican 
clergy  re-echoeu  these  preposterous  sentiments.  The  Kegius 
Professor  of  Divinity  at  Oxford,  JJr.  Sanderson,  said 
that  subjects  must  never  take  arms  against  their  sove- 
reign, '  not  for  the  maintenance  of  the  lives  and  liberties 


of  ourselves  and  others  ;  not  for  the  defence  of  religion  ; 
not,  if  that  could  be  imagined  possible,  for  the  salvation 
of  a  soul ;  not  for  the  redemption  of  the  whole  world.' 

The  historian  must  ask  how  this  insane  doctrine,  which 
no  Byzantine  emperor  had  ever  propounded,  came  to  be 
received  except  with  ridicule,  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
The  answer  is  that  the  new  spirit  of  nationality  had  been 
threatened  by  the  pretensions  of  the  Papacy,  and  that  to 
strengthen  the  monarchy  was  to  strengthen  the  nation. 
When  Queen  Elizabeth's  subjects  were  incited  to  be 
traitors  on  pain  of  damnation,  it  was  necessary  and  right 
to  give  a  religious  sanction  to  loyalty.  The  Tudors  under- 
stood this  ;  the  Stuarts  quite  misconceived  the  situation. 
We  shall  understand  the  position  of  the  British  monarchists 
better  if  we  read  the  arguments  of  Bacon,  and  later  of 
Hobbes.  But  these  belong  to  the  subject  of  our  next 
lecture.  Here  I  need  only  add  that  after  1688  the  doctrine 
of  the  divine  right  of  kings  lingered  only  as  a  romantic 
regret.  Tories  like  Swift  and  Bolingbroke  reject  it  with 
scorn.  Bolingbroke  says  :  '  A  divine  right  to  govern  ill  is 
an  absurdity  ;  to  assert  it  is  blasphemy.'  So  it  was,  when 
the  nation  was  no  longer  threatened  by  other  pretenders 
to  divine  right. 


120  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 


(iv)  THE  GOD-STATE 

The  two  main  features  of  modern  history  are  the 
development  of  nationalities  and  the  growth  of  individual 
freedom.  These  two  movements  began  rather  suddenly 
and  grew  very  rapidly  ;  though  Troeitsch  says  truly  that 
it  was  only  the  great  struggles  for  freedom  m  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries  which  brought  the  Middle 
Ages  definitely  to  an  end.  The  idea  of  an  European 
or  Christian  commonwealth,  supernational  and  resting 
on  ethical  or  religious  sanctions,  had  faded  away,  and 
with  it  faded  the  ideal  which  the  world  is  trying  to  revive 
in  the  League  of  Nations.  It  was  succeeded  by  an  era 
of  fierce  national  competition,  restrained,  so  far  as  it  was 
restrained,  by  custom  and  the  survival  of  vague  traditions 
of  international  law,  rather  than  by  any  clearly  conceived 
principle  ;  and  these  restraints,  instead  of  growing  stronger, 
almost  disappeared  whenever  any  State  felt  strong  enough 
to  disregard  them. 

The  intestine  struggles  of  Italy  during  the  Renaissance 
demoralised  the  nation,  and  in  a  people  of  acute  and 
logical  intellect  produced  the  same  kind  of  cynicism  which 
Thucydides  notes  as  the  result  of  the  Peloponnesian  War. 
This  spirit  lives  for  us  in  the  writings  of  Machiavelli,  who 
began  to  write  the  books  which  have  made  him  famous 
when  he  was  living  in  retirement  near  San  Casciano,  in 
the  year  1513.  In  part,  but  not  altogether,  he  deserves 
the  obloquy  which  has  clung  to  his  name.  It  is  true  that 
he  proclaimed  that  politics,  as  actually  carried  on,  have 
nothing  to  do  with  ethics  ;  it  is  not  true  that  he  attached 
no  value  to  morality  ;  but  modern  readers  have  neglected 
the  ethical  parts  of  his  books.  A  few  quotations  will 
show  what  he  really  taught  and  thought  '  Men  never 
behave  well  unless  they  are  obliged  ;  whenever  they  are 
free  to  do  as  they  like,  everything  is  filled  with  confusion 
and  disorder.  A  lawgiver  must  necessarily  assume  that 
all  men  are  bad,  and  that  they  will  follow  the  wickedness 
of  their  hearts  whenever  they  have  the  opportunity  to 
do  so.'  This  resembles  the  Protestant  doctrine  of  total 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      121 

depravity ;  it  is  overcoloured  and  rather  too  cynical. 
His  theory  of  imitation  is  like  that  of  the  Frenchman 
Tarde.  '  Men  almost  always  walk  in  the  paths  that  others 
have  chosen  and  in  their  actions  proceed  by  imitation, 
yet  they  cannot  attain  to  the  excellence  which  they  imitate.' 
So  Anatole  France  says,  '  Pecus  is  imitative,  and  would 
appear  more  so  if  he  did  not  deform  what  he  imitates. 
Tiiese  deiormations  produce  what  is  called  progress.'  He 
sees  clearly  that  all  institutions  carry  within  them  the 
seeds  of  their  own  dissolution.  '  In  all  things  there  is 
latent  some  peculiar  evil  which  gives  rise  to  fresh  changes. 
...  It  has  been,  is,  and  always  will  be  true  that  evil 
succeeds  good  and  good  evil,  and  the  one  is  always  the 
cause  of  the  other.  I  am  convinced  that  the  world  has 
always  existed  after  the  same  manner,  and  the  quantity 
of  good  and  evil  in  it  has  been  constant ;  but  this  good 
and  evil  keep  shifting  from  country  to  country,  as  is  seen 
by  the  records  of  ancient  empires  ;  but  the  world  itself 
remained  the  same.'  Of  forms  of  government  and  their 
changes  he  speaks  like  Plato  and  Aristotle.  Monarchy 
passes  into  tyranny,  aristocracy  into  oligarchy,  democracy 
into  anarchy ;  and '  if  the  founder  of  a  State  establishes  any 
one  of  these  governments,  no  remedy  can  prevent  it  from 
sliding  ofi:  into  its  opposite.  This  is  the  circle  within 
which  all  States  are  governed.'  Theoretically,  a  State 
might  go  on  revolving  in  this  way  for  ever  ;  but  the  actual 
tendency  is  downward,  because  Nature  has  so  fashioned 
men  that  they  desire  everything  and  cannot  get  much  ; 
so  that  they  are  always  discontented  and  consumed  either 
by  ambition  or  by  fear  ;  and  these  passions  are  the  ruin 
of  States.  Tney  would  fall  to  pieces  sooner  but  for  wars, 
which  bind  them  together  for  a  time.  A  strong  monarchy, 
when  the  monarch  respects  the  laws,  gives  a  nation  the 
best  chance.  Machiaveili  adds  this  profound  observation  : 
'  The  safety  of  a  republic  or  kingdom  consists  not  in  having 
a  ruler  who  governs  wisely  while  he  lives,  but  in  being 
subject  to  one  who  so  organises  it  that  when  he  dies  it 
may  continue  to  maintain  itself.'  The  tendency  to  decay 
can  be  prevented  in  one  way  only.  '  The  observance  of 
the  ordinances  of  religion  is  the  cause  of  the  greatness  of 


122  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

commonwealths ;  so  also  is  the  neglect  of  them  the  cause 
of  ruin.  For  when  the  fear  of  God  is  wanting,  a  kingdom 
must  either  go  to  ruin  or  be  supported  by  the  fear  of  a 
prince  to  compensate  for  the  best  influences  of  religion.' 
He  adds,  in  words  which  might  have  been  borrowed  from 
Plotinus,  '  The  belief  that  if  you  remain  idle  on  your  knees 
God  will  fight  for  you  has  ruined  many  kingdoms.  Prayers 
are  indeed  necessary ;  but  let  no  man  be  so  foolish  as  to 
believe  that  if  his  house  falls  about  his  head,  God  will 
save  him  from  being  crushed.'  Keligion  and  respect  for 
law  are  necessary  for  the  health  of  a  community ;  failing 
these,  a  strong  and  enlightened  despot  may  keep  it  together 
for  a  short  time,  but  not  for  long.  We  have  here  a  hard 
and  sober  estimate  of  the  conditions  of  national  welfare ; 
its  moderate  pessimism  is  amply  confirmed  by  history. 
To  the  question,  What  is  right  in  politics  ?  he  gives  an 
answer  which  would  have  contented  our  utilitarians. 
'  I  believe  good  to  be  that  which  conduces  to  the  interests 
of  the  majority,  and  with  which  the  majority  are  contented.' 
I  am  afraid  we  must  admit  that  he  regarded  religion  mainly 
as  a  support  of  order  and  source  of  contentment.  JbLe 
did  not  think  that  the  principles  of  Christianity  are  work- 
able in  practical  politics,  and  in  consequence  accepted  a 
contradiction  between  private  and  political  ethics  which 
has  been  generally  accepted  in  modern  Germany  by 
moralists  as  well  as  politicians,  to  the  great  misfortune 
of  the  human  race.  The  Gospel,  he  says,  has  made  the 
world  weak,  and  a  prey  to  wicked  men,  since  the  majority, 
in  order  to  get  to  Paradise,  think  more  how  to  endure 
wrongs  than  how  to  punish  them.  Jlunaan  atfairs,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  controlled  by  the  law  of  sell-preserva- 
tion. A  ruler  finds  himself  in  a  world  which  he  did  not 
make  and  for  which  he  is  not  responsible ;  he  must  do 
whatever  is  necessary  to  ensure  the  survival  and  prosperity 
of  his  country.  Theoretically,  he  was  in  favour  of  a  free 
constitution,  of  an  influential  Church,  and  of  an  united 
Italy  :  but  in  the  desperate  state  of  his  country's  fortunes 
he  was  willing  to  support  a  crafty  despotism,  a  repudia- 
tion of  Christian  ethics,  and  conflict  within  the  conflnes 
of  Italy.  In  the  spirit  of  Bernhardi  and  many  other 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      123 

Germans,  he  says  :  '  Where  the  bare  safety  of  the  country 
is  at  stake,  no  consideration  of  justice  or  injustice,  of 
mercy  or  cruelty,  of  honour  or  dishonour,  can  find  a  place. 
Every  scruple  must  be  set  aside,  and  that  plan  followed 
which  saves  the  country's  life  and  preserves  her  liberty.' 
With  a  horrible  cynicism,  he  indicates  the  policy  which  the 
Bolsheviks  are  now  following :  '  To  establish  a  republic 
in  a  country  where  there  are  gentry,  you  cannot  succeed 
unless  you  kill  them  all.'  So,  perhaps  for  the  first  time, 
was  uttered  the  creed  of  the  God-State  which  has  dominated 
modern  politics  ever  sinca,  and  which  has  now  brought 
civilisation  to  the  brink  of  ruin.  From  that  time  to  this, 
though  not  without  brighter  episodes,  Christianity  has 
been  banished  from  international  politics,  and  international 
law  has  had  a  precarious  existence. 

Before  leaving  Machiavelli,  it  is  only  fair  to  remember 
that  this  divorce  between  the  secular  and  the  spiritual 
power  sounded  the  death-knell  of  one  of  the  worst  evils 
of  the  Middle  Ages — -religious  persecution.  Whether  the 
idea  of  a  Free  Church  in  a  Free  State  is  really  tenable  and 
practicable  is  another  question  ;  but  at  any  rate  modern 
secularism  has  put  an  end  to  the  Inquisition,  even  in 
Roman  Catholic  countries. 

Machiavelli  was  a  pioneer.  Let  us  pass  on  to  the 
next  century,  and — after  a  brief  recognition  of  Grotius, 
whose  '  De  lure  Belli  et  Pacis  '  (1625)  was  a  noble  attempt 
to  formulate  the  principles  of  international  law  at  a  time 
when  they  were  falling  into  desuetude — to  our  own  country, 
where  the  Renaissance  flowered  late.  Bacon's  ideal  is  a 
strong  military  State,  in  which  the  people  are  '  ever  ready 
to  spring  to  arms  ' ;  and  '  the  opinion  of  some  of  the 
Schoolmen  is  not  to  be  received,  that  war  cannot  be  made 
but  upon  a  precedent  injury  or  provocation  ;  for  there  is 
no  question  but  a  just  fear  of  danger,  though  there  be  no 
blow  given,  is  a  lawful  cause  of  a  war.'  The  State  is 
supreme  over  the  religion  as  well  as  the  politics  of  its 
citizens,  and  Bacon  acknowledges  no  obligation  to  the 
comity  of  civilised  nations,  lie  is  a  pure  nationalist. 
His  international  ethics  differ  in  no  way  from  the  principles 
expounded  before  the  war  by  German  professors. 


124  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

Hobbes,   one  of  the  most  powerful  and  origina    of 
political  thinkers,  threw  aside  the  divine  right  oi  kings, 
but     proclaimed     the     divine     right     of     States,      The 
'  Leviathan  '   is  as  famous   a    book   as  '  The  i'rmce '  of 
Machiavelli.     The  frontispiece  shows  a  gigantic  crowned 
figure,  representing  the  State,  with  the  motto  '  .Non  est 
potestas  super  terrain  quae  coinparetur  ei.'     He  describes 
the  natural  man  as  torn  by  various  passions  and  ambi- 
tions, without  law  or  justice,  and  living  a  life  that  was 
'  solitary,   poor,   nasty,    brutish,   short.'     The  war  of  all 
against  all  was  only  brought  to  an  end  by  the  establish- 
ment of  a  coercive  State.     This  must   be  centred  in  a 
despotic  sovereign,  for  a  limited  monarchy  is  a  contra- 
diction in   terms.     The  ruler   must   be  supreme  also  in 
spiritual   matters,   since  sovereignty   cannot   be   divided, 
and  there  is  no  room  in  any  weil-ordered  State  for  any 
independent  jurisdiction,   such   as   that   claimed    by   the 
Koman  Church.     The  Papacy  is  only  the  ghost  of  the 
deceased  Koman  Empire,  sitting  crowned  upon  the  grave 
thereof.     But  the  government,  though  absolute,  was  not 
to  be  inquisitive  or  tyrannical.     There  should  be  no  more 
laws  than  are  absolutely  necessary,  just  as  nature  does  not 
make  river  banks  higher  than  are  needed  to  guide  the 
course  of  the  water.     It  is  interesting  to  find  that  this 
ingenious    supporter    of    absolutism    was    hated    by    the 
Koyalists.     Clarendon  said  :  '  I  never  read  a  book  which 
contained  so  much  sedition,  treason,  and  impiety.'     The 
reason  was  that,  though  monarchy  seemed  to  liobbes  the 
best  form  of  government,  what  he  really  inculcated  was 
that  power,  whether  in  the  hands  of  a  king  or  a  parlia- 
ment, must  not  be  divided.     This  was  quite  diti'erent  from 
the  Koyalist  theory  ;  and  Hobbes  poured  scorn  on  the 
religious  and  romantic  ideas  which  were  then,  as  they  are 
always,  the  great  strength  of  Conservatism.     He  insisted 
quite  plainly  that  the  State  can  do  no  wrong,  having  no 
power  above  itself.     Hobbes  also  believed  in  an  '  original 
compact,'  which  was  a  favourite  plea  of  the  opponents  of 
Divine  Kight,  and  perhaps  their  best  argument,  though 
historically  baseless.    Locke  and  Milton  both  uphold  it. 
It  is  plain  that  there  is  no  necessary  connexion  between 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      125 

the  idea  that  a  government  ought  to  be  all-powerful  and 
that  every  '  nation  '  has  a  natural  right  to  independence. 
The  God-State  is  one  thing ;  the  God-Nation  is  another. 
There  are.  in  fact,  two  distinct  controversies — that  of  the 
State  against  the  individual,  or  against  groups  of  indi- 
viduals, which  is  part  of  the  eternal  conflict  between 
Order  and  Liberty ;  and  the  conflict  between  nationalism 
and  internationalism.  The  authority  of  the  State  was 
exalted  in  and  after  the  Renaissance,  partly  in  revolt 
against  such  international  authority  as  the  Papacy,  and 
partly  through  growing  consciousness  of  national  unity. 
But  nationalism  is  a  much  later  development ;  in  fact  it 
belongs  to  the  nineteenth  century.  It  was  not  a  very 
strong  sentiment  in  the  eighteenth  century,  when  culture 
was  more  European  and  less  national  than  it  is  now. 
Personally,  I  think  it  is  more  superficial  than  we  usually 
suppose,  and  a  vast  amount  of  deliberate  nonsense  has 
been  talked  about  it  since  1914.  It  is  impossible  to  define 
a  nation  except  as  a  body  of  men  who  believe  themselves 
to  be  one.  Nationalism  is  different  from  racialism — the 
absurd  and  unscientific  theory  which  the  Germans  exploited 
under  the  guidance  of  Houston  Chamberlain — for  the 
nations  are  all  mixed  in  blood  beyond  the  possibility  of 
disentanglement.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  language,  for 
the  Scots  speak  two  languages,  the  Belgians  and  Swiss 
three  each,  and  the  Americans  at  least  a  dozen.  It  has 
no  essential  connexion  with  political  allegiance  ;  for  the 
most  violent  nationalism  is  generally  that  of  some  ill- 
conditioned  province  which  has  persuaded  itself  that  it  is 
a  fine  thing  to  hate  the  rest  of  the  political  aggregate  to 
which  it  belongs.  But  it  is  an  extremely  potent  sentiment, 
strong  enough  to  create  grievances  and  antipathies— and 
sometimes  even  unities — out  of  nothing.  Mazzini  hypno- 
tised the  Italians  by  the  word  '  Italia,'  and  Italy  is 
indubitably  a  nation,  though  it  is  obvious  to  the  most 
casual  observer  that  the  North  and  South  Italians  are 
racially  quite  different.  The  Congress  of  Vienna,  which 
in  all  respects  compares  very  favourably  with  the  Congress 
of  Versailles,  is  commonly  abused  for  disregarding  this 
sentiment  of  nationality,  which  was  by  no  means  universally 


126  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

felt.  Lord  Acton  says  bluntly, '  The  theory  of  nationalism 
is  more  absurd  and  more  criminal  than  that  of  Socialism,' 
a  verdict  which  would  have  been  more  telling  without  the 
comparison,  for  Socialism  is  not  necessarily  absurd  or 
criminal ;  it  is  only  a  machine  which  has  hitherto  refused 
to  work,  whereas  nationalism  works  a  great  deal  too  well. 
The  good  old  word  '  patriotism  '  is  far  more  rational  and 
intelligible. 

The  modern  period  has  been  marked  by  the  successive 
attempts  of  nation-states,  intoxicated  by  their  own 
strength,  to  destroy  their  neighbours.  We,  as  it  happens, 
have  always  been  one  of  the  neighbours,  though  if  we 
look  at  the  world,  and  not  at  Europe,  the  matter  appears 
rather  different.  The  spirit  of  militant  nationalism  has 
never  been  shown  so  nakedly  as,  in  the  recent  war, 
by  Germany ;  for  the  earlier  attempts  to  destroy  the 
balance  of  power  in  Europe  were  inspired  by  more  mixed 
ambitions.  Spain  wished  to  re-establish  the  medieval 
theocracy  ;  France,  under  Louis  XIV.  was  governed  partly 
by  the  dynastic  and  personal  ambitions  of  its  king ;  and 
the  Revolutionary  Wars  began  with  the  desire  to  dis- 
seminate certain  ideas — they  in  part  resembled  the  early 
wars  of  Islam.  In  fact,  though  patriotic  pride  played  a 
great  part  in  the  support  which  the  French  gave  to  the 
designs  of  Napoleon,  the  spirit  of  nationalism  was  ranged 
against  him,  and  he  did  more  to  kindle  it  than  anyone 
else,  not  by  fostering  it,  but  by  threatening  it.  The 
victory  of  the  Allies  a  hundred  years  ago,  like  the  victory 
of  the  Allies  in  the  late  war.  was  a  victory  for  nationalism  ; 
though  the  spirit  of  nationalism,  in  its  most  aggressive 
form,  seemed  to  be  incarnated  in  the  Germans.  Napoleon's 
contribution  to  the  evolution  of  the  God-State  lay  in  his 
repudiation  of  all  international  law  and  morality,  and  in 
the  drastic  thoroughness  with  which  he  brought  all  the 
intellectual  and  spiritual  forces  in  France  into  subservi- 
ence to  his  own  policy.  There  is  nothing  original  in 
Prussianism ;  it  is  carefully  copied  from  Napoleon,  its 
inventor.  But  Germany  had  more  time  to  perfect  the 
Napoleonic  scheme,  and  carried  it  so  imich  farther  that 
Lord  Acton  was  able  (too  flatteringly,  perhaps)  to  call 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      127 

Prussianism  *  a  new  type  of  autocracy — the  Government 
the  intelbctual  guide  of  the  nation,  the  promoter  of 
wealth,  the  teacher  of  knowledge,  the  guardian  of  morality, 
the  mainspring  of  the  ascending  movement  of  man.'  He 
added  prophetically  that  '  it  is  the  greatest  danger  that 
remains  to  be  encountered  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  race.' 

These  lectures  are  concerned  rather  with  ideas  than 
with  history ;  and  it  is  with  the  theory  rather  than  with 
the  practice  of  the  God-State  that  I  wish  to  deal  to-day. 
The  genesis  of  the  doctrine  in  Germany  has  been  traced 
back  to  Fichte,  in  the  famous  lectures  which  he  gave  at 
Berlin  after  Prussia  had  been  humbled  to  the  dust  by 
Napoleon.  He  said : 

The  duty  of  the  State  is  to  care  for  the  maintenance  and 
increase  of  the  population  by  encouraging  marriage  and  the 
nurture  of  children,  by  health-institutes  and  the  like  ;  to  take 
means  for  developing  man's  empire  over  nature  by  well-planned 
and  continuous  improvements  in  agriculture,  industry,  and 
trade,  and  by  maintaining  the  necessary  balance  between  these 
branches  ;  in  short,  by  all  those  operations  which  are  included 
in  the  conception  of  national  economy.  In  return,  it  is  the 
right  of  the  State  to  employ  for  its  purposes  the  whole  surplus 
of  all  the  powers  of  its  citizens  without  exception.  The  free 
and  noble  citizen  offers  his  share  willingly,  as  a  sacrifice  upon 
the  altar  of  his  fatherland  ;  he  who  needs  to  be  forred  to  part 
with  it  only  shows  that  be  was  never  worthy  of  the  gift  entrusted 
to  him. 

So  far,  we  seem  to  have  a  sketch  of  a  scientific  State- 
socialism.  But  Fichte  goes  on :  'It  is  the  necessary 
tendency  of  every  civilised  State  to  expand  in  every 
direction.'  The  weaker  States  struggle  against  this 
tendency,  and  have  invented  the  doctrine  of  a  balance 
of  power.  '  But  no  State  strives  to  maintain  this  balance 
except  as  a  pis  aller,  and  because  it  cannot  compass  its 
own  aggrandisement  or  carry  out  its  implicit  plan  for  a 
universal  monarchy.  Every  State  defends  the  balance  of 
power  when  it  is  attacked  by  another,  and  prepares  in 
secret  the  means  whereby  it  may,  in  its  own  time,  become 
itself  a  disturber  of  the  peace.'  The  well-known  advice, 
*  Threaten  war  that  you  may  have  peace,'  is  equally  valid 


128  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

in  the  converse,  '  Promise  peace  in  order  that  yon  may 
begin  war  with  an  advantage  in  your  favour.'  '  Always, 
without  exception,  the  most  civilised  State  is  the  most 
aggressive.'  It  is  a  pity  that  we  in  England  are  so  con- 
vinced that  professors  do  not  count ;  for  in  Germany  they 
do  count,,  and  really  they  have  been  very  candid.  Civitas 
civitati  lupus :  history  is  to  remain  for  all  time  a  dismal 
conjugation  of  the  verb  '  to  eat.'  in  the  active  and  passive. 
The  direct  influence  of  Fichte  has  perhaps  not  been 
very  great  after  his  own  generation,  at  any  rate  in  Germany. 
But  Hegel  has  certainly  founded  a  school,  which  still  has 
distinguished  men  as  its  prophets.  The  difference  between 
the  two  men,  as  concerns  our  present  subject,  is  that 
Fichte  deified  the  German  nation — he  preached  a  fanatical 
patriotism  ;  while  Hegel  deifies  the  State  qua  State.  The> 
criticism  seems  to  be  justified  that  be  draws  no  distinction 
between  the  Ideal  and  the  Actual,  holding  that  the 
Absolute  is  realised  in  concrete  experience  ;  so  that  we 
cannot  condemn  things  as  they  are  by  contrasting  them 
with  things  as  they  ought  to  be.  When  he  says,  '  the 
real  world  is  as  it  ought  to  be.'  he  is  saying  what  Plato 
would  agree  with  ;  but  whereas  Plato's  conclusion  is  '  Let 
us  flee  hence  to  our  dear  country,'  Hegel  finds  his  ideal 
State  not  invisible  and  in  heaven,  but  visible  and  on 
earth.  His  religious  exaltation  in  speaking  of  the  State 
is  most  extraordinary,  and  to  most  of  us  must  appear 
grotesque.  '  The  State  is  the  divine  idea  as  it  exists  on 
earth.'  '  All  the  worlh  which  the  human  being  possesses, 
all  the  spiritual  reality  which  he  possesses,  he  possesses 
only  through  the  State.'  '  The  State  is  the  Spirit  which 
stands  in  the  world  and  realises  itself  therein  consciously.' 
'  The  existence  of  the  State  is  the  movement  of  God  in 
the  world.'  '  The  State  is  the  divine  will  as  the  present 
Spirit  unfolding  itself  to  the  actual  shape  and  organisation 
of  a  world.'  '  It  is  the  absolute  power  on  earth  :  it  is  its 
own  end  and  object.  It  is  the  ultimate  end  which  has 
the  highest  right  against  the  individual.'  He  even  calls 
the  State  '  this  actual  God,'  as  the  Eomans  called  Augustus 
praesens  divus.  It  is  necessary  to  realise  that  these  wild 
utterances  are  not  the  hyperboles  of  a  rhapsodist,  but 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      129 

the  grave  and  deliberate  opinions  of  a  great  philosopher. 
They  throw  a  flood  of  light  on  modern  Germany,  and 
incidentally  relieve  Bismarck  from  the  charge  of  having 
invented  this  type  of  political  theory. 

The  worshippers  of  the  God-State  naturally  deny  to 
individual  citizens  any  rights  against  the  State.  This  view 
may  be  easily  held  without  any  metaphysical  theories 
about  the  nature  and  limits  of  personality,  and  there  is 
no  reason  why  a  philosophy  which  minimises  the  value 
and  reality  of  the  individual  should  lead  to  State-worship. 
But  in  Hegel  it  is  said  that  these  two  parts  of  his  philo- 
sophy are  made  to  help  each  other ;  and  it  is  certain  that 
some  English  disciples  of  his  have  made  play  with  the 
quasi-mystical  conception  of  a  General  Will,  which  had  its 
birth,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  in  France,  but  which  may 
be  used  to  support  the  notion  of  the  State  aSNa  super- 
person,  in  whom  individuals  participate  Platonically. 
Sometimes  the  General  Will  is  called  the  Keal  Will,  as  if  it 
were  that  which  in  our  heart  of  hearts  we  desire,  though 
we  may  not  always  be  aware  of  it.  This,  however,  seems 
to  introduce  a  contrast  between  the  ideal  and  the  actual 
which  this  philosophy  on  the  whole  ignores.  The  Real 
Will,  or  the  General  Will,  is  the  mind  of  the  deified  State. 

A  whole  series  of  difficulties  at  once  occur  to  the  mind. 
Is  not  the  notion  of  a  General  Will  a  mere  metaphor  ? 
There  is  no  social  sensorium,  and  we  do  not  really  feel  for 
each  other  in  any  literal  sense.  However  much  I  may 
sympathise  with  my  child  who  has  a  toothache,  my  own 
teeth  do  not  ache  in  consequence.  When  two  men  desire 
the  same  thing — the  same  woman,  for  example — their  wills 
remain  two,  not  one.  And  in  politics  the  idea  of  a  General 
Will  seems  to  be  nonsense,  and  only  invented  to  prove  to 
the  minority  that  minorities  have  no  right  to  exist.  The 
nearest  approach  to  a  General  Will  is  not  presented  by  the 
State,  even  in  war-time,  when  a  common  danger  and 
enthusiasm  sweep  away  many  minor  differences  of  opinion, 
but  by  small  fanatical,  ignorant,  selfish  groups — such  as 
the  political  faddists  who  subordinate  all  other  interests 
to  their  one  craze,  and  constitute  one  of  the  dangers  and 
difficulties  of  democratic  government.  And  this  suggests 


130  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

another  fatal  objection  to  the  theory.     Why  should  the 
State  be  the  unit  ?      The  metaphor  of  a  social  organism 
has  been  run  to  death,  and  certainly,  if  the  State  be  an 
organism,   it  must  be  compared  to   the  very  humblest 
organisms  known  to  biology.     But  in  fact  we  all  belong 
to  a  great  many  social  organisms,  each  of  which  has  its 
indefeasible  rights  over  us,  and  we  our  rights  in  it.     Some 
of  these  are  smaller  than  the  State,  others  are  larger.     The 
chief  of  these  are  the  family  ;  the  body  for  which  we  work, 
whether  it  be  a  College  or  University,  a  commercial  company, 
or  a  trade  guild  ;  the  Church  ;  the  State  ;  the  comity  of 
civilised  nations  ;  humanity  at  large  ;  and   (I   hope)   all 
living  beings  on  the  earth.    There  is  nothing  specially  sacred 
about  the  State,  which,  so  far  as  it  is  identified  with  the 
Government,  may  be  the  least  respectable  of  all  the  social 
organisms  to  which  we  belong.    It  is  true  that  some  writers, 
like  Dr.  Bosanquet,  include  in  '  the  State  '  '  not  merely 
the  political  fabric,  but  the  entire  hierarchy  of  institutions 
by  which  life  is  determined,  including  the  family,  trade, 
the  Church,  the  University.'     But  in  the  first  place  '  the 
State  '  in  common  usage  does  not  mean  the  entire  hierarchy 
of  social  life,  and  does  mean  the  political  fabric  ;  and 
secondly,  some  of  the  chief  problems  of  ethics  arise  from 
the  conflicting  claims  of  the  various  social  organisms  which 
are  here  merged  or  confused.     The  gravamen  against  the 
worshippers  of  the  God-State  is  that  they  deny  all  inde- 
pendent authority  to  the  other  social  organisms,  some  of 
which  are  more  important  to  the  welfare  and  happiness  of 
the  individual  than  the  State  itself.     There  is  in  fact  no 
philosophical   reason   whatever   why   the   political   fabric 
should  be  chosen  out  for  apotheosis.     The  choice  is  an 
accident  due  to  the  circumstances  under  which  the  philo- 
sophy arose.     It  is  worth  noticing  that  Karl  Marx,  starting 
from  Hegelian  principles,   found  his  real-ideal  common- 
wealth, not  in  the  political  aggregate,  but  in  a  general  will 
to  power  of  a  social  class  dispersed  throughout  the  world, 
and  that  the  Bolsheviks,  taking  Marx  as  their  prophet, 
have  carried  their  worship  of  this  new  Moloch  to  a  maniacal 
frenzy  which  even  the  German  militarists  never  approached. 
The  essence  of  the  philosophy,  and  its  great  moral  and 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      131 

social  danger,  is  not  identification  of  the  political  aggregate 
with  the  Absolute  Spirit  incarnated  in  an  institution,  but 
the  belief  that  such  an  incarnation  exists  somewhere,  and 
that  when  found,  it  has  a  right  to  an  unqualified  devotion 
which  overrides  all  other  social  obligations  and  all  the 
principles  of  morality.  The  evil  is  that  men  should  pay 
divine  honours  to  any  human  institution,  making  its  claims 
absolute  and  unchallengeable.  In  the  period  which  the 
Great  War  perhaps  brought  to  an  end,  it  was  natural  to 
deify  either  the  nation  or  the  State.  We  are  perhaps  on 
the  threshold  of  an  epoch  in  which  other  associations,  either 
wider  than  the  nation,  like  the  Catholic  Church,  or  Labour, 
or  narrower  than  the  nation,  like  the  groups  which  it  is 
proposed  to  form  into  trade  guilds,  may  claim  and  receive 
the  same  immoral  and  unquestioning  devotion  which,  when 
given  to  the  State,  has  brought  such  hideous  calamities 
upon  the  world.  If  so,  we  shall  find  that  the  error  is  not 
less  destructive  in  its  new  forms. 

There  is  one  more  difficulty,  which  the  worshippers  of 
the  State  seem  seldom  to  have  faced.  It  would  be  too 
absurd  to  suppose  that  our  own  State  is  the  only  specimen 
of  these  superhuman  and  supermoral  individualities. 
Even  the  ancient  Hebrews  in  some  sort  recognised  Chemosh 
and  the  other  Canaanite  gods.  But  if  there  are  several  of 
these  mysterious  demigods,  who  by  hypothesis  are  wiser 
and  more  moral  than  human  individuals,  how  is  it  that 
they  have  never  evolved  even  the  rudiments  of  a  system 
by  which  they  can  live  on  tolerable  terms  with  each  other  ? 
To  the  unprejudiced  observer,  so  far  from  displaying 
superior  wisdom  or  morality,  international  relations  seem  to 
exhibit  the  most  dismal  failure  of  common  sense  and  common 
decency  to  be  found  anywhere.  On  the  whole,  the  larger 
the  group,  the  worse  it  behaves.  Of  all  aggregates,  States 
are  the  most  shameless  in  their  conduct,  when  they  act 
as  States.  To  worship  the  State  is  to  worship  a  demon  who 
has  not  even  the  redeeming  quality  of  being  intelligent. 

I  have  said  that  some  serious  ethical  problems  are  raised 
by  the  conflicting  claims  of  the  various  social  organisms  to 
which  we  belong.  Sometimes  the  State  bids  us  to  do  some- 
thing of  which  our  consciences  disapprove.  Let  us  take 


132  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

an  example  which  has  been  hotly  discussed  during  the  last 
few  years,  and  in  which  the  possibility  of  a  conflict,  such  as 
that  in  the  '  Antigone '  of  Sophocles,  between  State-law  and 
the  older  and  more  august  laws  of  humanity,  whether  based 
on  religion  or  not,  has  become  very  apparent.  When  the 
Great  War  broke  out,  the  State  called  upon  all  able-bodied 
citizens  to  help  in  resisting  the  enemy.  But  a  minority 
of  citizens  thought  that  the  war  was  a  mistake.  None  but 
the  most  perverse  could  argue  that  our  cause  was  bad  ;  but 
some  held  that  the  Christian  maxims  '  Resist  not  the  evil 
man,'  and  '  Overcome  evil  with  good,'  were  intended  to  be 
put  into  practice.  Non-resistance,  they  said,  is  the 
Christian  way  of  dealing  with  aggression,  and  it  has  yet 
to  be  proved  that  it  is  not  more  efficacious  than  the  attempt 
to  crush  the  aggressor  by  violence.  Others,  leaving  on 
one  side  the  religious  and  humanitarian  objections  to 
war,  may  have  thought  that  bellicose  patriotism  is  an 
anachronism  which  is  out  of  relation  with  the  actual  facts 
of  civilisation  in  the  twentieth  century.  European  civilisa- 
tion, they  might  argue,  is  homogeneous  and  bound  together 
by  a  hundred  ties.  Nations  are  becoming  artificial  groups  ; 
as  nations  they  gain  by  each  other's  prosperity  and  lose  by 
each  other's  misfortunes.  The  real  cleavage  in  modern 
society  is  horizontal ;  it  runs  through  all  countries,  and 
divides  in  each  country  the  handworker  from  the  bour- 
geoisie. This  war,  then,  was  a  stupid  reversion  to  passions 
which  the  world  has  outgrown,  and  to  rivalries  which  are 
really  obsolete  ;  the  forces  of  law  and  order  have  ruined 
themselves  in  a  suicidal  struggle,  oblivious  that  their  real 
enemies  were  those  of  their  own  household.  A  third  group 
may  have  agreed  with  Mr.  Norman  Angell  that  war  between 
great,  wealthy,  and  well-matched  Powers  is  suicidal  folly — 
the  worst  kind  of  bad  business  ;  since  in  such  a  struggle 
the  worst  of  all  calamities  is  to  lose,  and  the  next  worst  to 
win.  These  are  all,  it  seems  to  me,  reasonable  attitudes, 
and  I  am  unable  to  make  a  distinction  by  saying  that  the 
first  objection  is  conscientious,  the  second  and  third  only 
intellectual.  I  am  not  conscious  of  becoming  uncon- 
scientious  when  I  begin  to  think.  What  then  was  the 
duty  of  a  person  holding  any  of  these  views  ?  Ought  he  to 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      133 

have  enlisted,  or  to  have  refused  to  serve  ?  And  what  was 
the  duty  of  the  State  if  he  refused  to  serve  ?  The  position 
actually  taken  up  by  the  State  in  this  country — of  trying  to 
decide  whether  an  objection  was  conscientious  or  not- — was, 
I  think,  absurd  and  illogical.  The  State  cannot  try  men's 
hearts  and  examine  their  motives.  The  French,  as  is  well 
known,  shot  their  conscientious  objectors,  and  sent  to  their 
next-of-kin  a  curt  notice  that  So-and-so  '  died  as  a  coward.' 
This  was  unjust,  for  some  objectors  were  not  cowards  ;  but 
who  would  venture  to  judge  even  in  his  own  case  whether 
his  objections  to  the  war,  reasonable  as  they  may  have 
been  in  themselves,  were  not  specially  recommended  to 
him  by  his  dislike  of  the  prospect  of  being  shot  ?  May 
there  not  have  been  more  moral  courage  in  the  unwilling 
recruit  who  said  frankly,  '  I  would  rather  be  a  coward  than 
a  corpse  '  ?  The  State  had  to  consider  whether  it  could 
afford  to  keep  military  service  on  a  voluntary  basis,  since 
this  was  the  only  real  alternative  to  universal  conscription  ; 
and  quite  clearly  it  could  not  afford  it.  With  all  my 
sympathy  and  admiration  for  the  Quakers,  I  think  that 
when  the  safety  and  existence  of  the  country  is  at  stake, 
the  right  of  private  judgment  in  opposing  the  deliberately 
accepted  policy  of  the  State  cannot  be  upheld. 

A  misleading  parallel  has  sometimes  been  adduced, 
from  the  conduct  of  the  early  Christians  in  refusing  to 
sacrifice.  But  the  cases  are  quite  different.  The  Roman 
government  of  course  did  not  care  whether  the  Christians 
sacrificed  or  not ;  they  never  compelled  the  Jews  to  sacri- 
fice ;  the  sacrificial  test  was  adopted  as  the  simplest  which 
was  known  to  be  effective.  The  object  was  to  stamp  out 
a  self-governing  society  within  the  State.  Now  in  doing 
this  the  State  was  exceeding  its  rights.  Such  societies 
may  be  troublesome  and  even  dangerous  ;  but  the  State 
must  wait  till  they  break  the  ordinary  laws,  not  laws 
invented  on  purpose  to  catch  them.  The  Koman  Catholics 
are  often  a  nuisance  to  governments  ;  but  the  State  has  no 
right  to  ordain  that  everyone  shall  publicly  eat  beef  on 
Good  Friday,  on  pain  of  death.  Societies  within  the  State 
have  a  right  to  exist,  so  long  as  they  do  not  break  the  laws 
or  plot  to  overthrow  the  government. 


134  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

Another  case  of  conscience  may  be  raised.  Let  us 
suppose  that  the  constitutional  maxim,  '  No  taxation 
without  representation,'  has  been  flagrantly  violated,  and 
that  a  class  which  pays  an  undue  proportion  of  the  taxes 
has  been  deprived  of  all  effective  representation,  and  is 
systematically  fleeced  by  one  or  both  of  the  dominant 
parties,  which  bribe  the  electorate  at  their  expense.  Is  it 
justifiable  for  the  injured  class  to  resist  when  possible  ? 
Remembering  St.  Thomas  Aquinas'  maxim,  '  In  the  court 
of  conscience  there  is  no  obligation  to  obey  an  unjust  law,' 1 
I  should  hesitate  to  answer  in  the  negative  ;  but  it  is  clear 
that  an  open  and  concerted  refusal  to  pay  may  be  justifiable, 
when  private  concealment  of  income  is  not.  A  different 
class  of  problem  arises  when  the  State  legislates  against 
the  rules  of  a  religious  body.  How  far  ought  Catholics 
and  Anglicans  to  recognise  the  marriages  of  divorced 
persons,  or  marriages  with  a  deceased  wife's  sister  ?  The 
State  is  no  creator  of  moral  principles,  and  if  we  are  con- 
vinced (for  example)  that  marriage  is  indissoluble,  we 
cannot  absolve  from  guilt  those  who  have  broken  this 
divine  decree.  The  infliction  of  social  penalties,  and  the 
expulsion  from  our  religious  society  of  those  who  have 
taken  advantage  of  the  laxity  of  the  law,  are  clearly 
justifiable. 

Or  suppose  that  the  State  has  exceeded  its  rights  by 
prohibiting  some  harmless  act,  such  as  the  consumption 
of  alcohol.  Is  smuggling,  in  such  a  case,  morally  justi- 
fiable ?  I  should  say  Yes  :  the  interference  of  the  State 
in  such  matters  is  a  mere  impertinence. 

These  are  examples  of  the  moral  problems  which  may 
arise  from  our  membership  of  different  bodies  which  overlap 
each  other,  and  by  our  possession  of  certain  indefeasible 
rights  as  individuals  and  free  men,  with  which  the  State 
has  no  right  to  meddle.  Among  these  rights  I  unhesi- 
tatingly include  the  right  of  private  property. 

We  have  now  to  remind  ourselves  that  the  movement 
which  we  have  traced  from  its  inception  in  Machiavelli's 
'  Prince '  to  its  sinister  culmination  in  German  philosophy 

1  Locke  holds  that  a  government  which  imposes  taxes  without 
consent  is  no  true  government. 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      135 

and  German  practice,  has  not  been  the  only  movement  in 
European  political  thought  since  the  Renaissance.  1  said 
that  in  the  modern  period  two  new  ideas  are  plainly  trace- 
able :  one  of  them  is  the  emergence  of  nationalities,  and 
the  intense  loyalties  which  have  clustered  round  either  the 
idea  of  the  nation  or  the  idea  of  the  State  ;  and  the  other  is 
the  growing  independence  of  the  individual. 

Both  are  reactions  against  the  dominant  ideas  of  the 
Middle  Ages  ;  but  they  are  on  the  whole  opposed  to  each 
other.  Lord  Eustace  Percy,  in  his  thoughtful  book  '  The 
Responsibilities  of  the  League,'  maintains  that  ever  since 
the  Renaissance  Europe  has  been  living  under  '  a  philosophy 
of  emancipation.'  First  the  Reformation  broke  the  power 
of  the  Church,  and  freed  the  Northern  Europeans  from  the 
yoke  of  the  Latin  Empire.  Next  an  attack  was  made  upon 
the  monarchical  idea,  and  kings  were  deprived  of  most  of 
their  power.  Then  the  aristocracy,  who  represented  the 
traditions  of  feudalism,  were  struck  down.  Then  the 
middle-class  plutocracy  were  shorn  of  their  political  pre- 
ponderance, and  are  now  trembling  for  their  pockets. 
Then — let  us  not  shut  our  eyes  to  this  fact — parliamentary 
democracy  began  to  be  attacked,  so  that  the  House  of 
Commons  has  lost  in  prestige  quite  as  much  as  the -House 
of  Lords.  At  the  same  time  the  idea  of  nationality  is 
assailed  by  the  same  disintegrating  philosophy.  We  must 
make  our  minds  quite  clear  about  this.  The  great  issue 
before  the  world  is  not  between  monarchy  and  democracy, 
but  between  nationalism  and  internationalism.  While  we, 
following  humbly  in  the  wake  of  America,  have  been  airing 
our  fly-blown  phylacteries  and  chattering  about  making 
the  world  safe  for  democracy,  the  world  has  been  girding 
itself  for  a  much  grimmer  cnoice.  The  new  revolutionary 
and  semi -revolutionary  movements  are  all,  without  ex- 
ception, frankly  anti-democratic.  That  issue  is  no  longer 
alive.  Ballot-box  democracy  has  seen  its  best  days.  The 
question  before  the  world  is  whether  the  principle  of 
nationality  has  been  so  discredited  by  the  war  that  it  is 
going  to  be  abandoned,  and  a  universal  civil  war  of  classes 
put  in  its  place.  All  that  we  have  said  about  the  absurdity 
of  the  God-State  may  prove  to  be  like  flogging  a  dead  horse. 


136  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

The  strategy  of  Foch  has  refuted  Hegel  and  Treitschke. 
Real-politik  has  not  been  real  enough.  It  has  been  through- 
out, on  one  side,  a  form  of  romanticism,  and  it  has  mis- 
calculated the  forces  against  it.  No  doubt  it  was  con- 
sciously arming  itself  against  its  internal  even  more  than 
against  its  external  foes  ;  and  we  may  soon  have  to  admit 
that  the  enemy  was  sufficiently  terrible  to  make  even  the 
crime  of  plunging  the  world  into  war  capable  of  palliation. 
The  God-State  has  gone  with  the  Kaiser  into  banishment ; 
the  question  is,  whether  we  are  to  have  States  at  all  in 
future.  The  conflict  was  openly  declared  more  than  half 
a  century  ago  in  the  controversy  between  Mazzini  and 
Bakunin  the  Russian  anarchist,  and  the  issue  is  clearly 
perceived  on  the  Continent. 

The  League  of  Nations,  let  us  remember,  is  based  on 
the  principle  of  nationality.  The  nations  are  to  be  units, 
entering  into  the  League  as  units,  and  supporting  it  as 
units.  For  this  reason,  the  Revolution  is  pledged  to  destroy 
the  League  of  Nations,  and  if  the  League  ever  comes  into 
effective  existence,  the  Revolution  will  do  all  in  its  power 
to  undermine  it.  We  English  are,  as  usual,  so  slow  to  under- 
stand what  is  going  on  abroad  that  we  do  not  realise  this, 
and  muddle-headed  persons  may  be  found  supporting 
the  League  of  Nations  and  also  expressing  sympathy  with 
Bolshevism. 

If  you  have  followed  me  so  far,  you  will  see  that  I  am 
by  no  means  prepared  to  give  up  the  idea  of  the  State 
Visible.  It  is  the  unifying  force  which  keeps  the  citizens  of 
a  country  together.  It  is  the  eye  and  hand  and  brain  of 
the  nation  ;  and  can  anyone  say  that  love  of  country  and 
pride  in  our  membership  of  it  are  not  strong  and  noble 
sentiments  to-day  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  the  nobler  elements 
in  our  nature  are  so  much  bound  up  with  '  our  country,' 
that  the  loss  of  this  particular  social  organism,  though  it 
is  not  the  only  one,  would  impoverish  life  incalculably. 
I  am  not  favourably  impressed  with  internationalism  as 
I  have  met  with  it.  It  is  generally,  I  think,  associated 
with  some  bitter  sectional  animosity,  and  with  a  good  deal 
of  sheer  selfishness  and  unwillingness  to  make  sacrifices. 
The  people  who  quote  (very  unfairly)  Dr.  Johnson's  well- 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      137 

known  gibe  that  patriotism  is  the  last  refuge  of  the  scoundrel 
are  persons  whom  one  would  be  glad  to  see  driven  to  their 
last  refuge.  They  are  frequently  persons  who  also  speak 
disparagingly  of  other  bonds  which  mankind  has  held 
sacred  for  thousands  of  years — the  family  and  religion. 
It  is  surely  plain  that  to  destroy  these  loyalties — to  country, 
to  church  and  to  wife  and  children — would  be  to  dissolve 
human  society  completely.  For  these  are  the  cement  that 
has  made  any  kind  of  social  fabric  possible.  And  it  is 
surely  a  truism  that  though  a  social  fabric  may  be  disin- 
tegrated and  destroyed,  it  cannot  be  put  together  again 
like  a  house.  One  might  as  well  try  to  build  a  tree,  or  to 
put  life  into  an  anatomical  model  of  a  human  body.  The 
State  is  a  living  organism  :  not  that  it  is  a  superhuman 
person,  or  a  person  of  any  kind  ;  but  it  is  compacted  of 
those  organic  filaments  of  which  Cailyle  speaks,  drawing 
their  vitality  from  the  deepest  instincts  and  most  firmly 
rooted  racial  habits.  Private  property,  the  family,  re- 
ligion, patriotism — how  can  anyone  with  the  slightest 
pretence  to  the  historical  sense  suppose  that  an  experiment 
which  repudiates  all  these  can  be  anything  else  than  a 
fiasco  ? 

The  tragedy  is  that  the  modern  State  has  discredited 
itself,  partly  by  the  overweening  claims  made  for  it,  but 
mainly  by  being  false  to  the  ideals  which  a  State  ought  to 
set  before  itself  ;  by  its  explicit  or  implicit  rejection  of 
moral  standards,  by  its  insatiable  greed  of  territory  and 
power  ;  by  its  thinly  disguised  or  quite  open  injustice  in 
dealing  with  weaker  States  ;  and  by  the  wretched  quality 
of  its  governments,  whether  monarchical,  oligarchical,  or 
democratic.  Instead  of  trying  to  realise  the  ideals  of  the 
City  of  God,  whose  type  is  laid  up  in  heaven  ;  instead  of 
'  coveting  earnestly  the  best  gifts  '  for  the  country  which  it 
represents,  it  has  cultivated  a  brutal  worship  of  power, 
the  ideal  of  the  '  tyrannical  man  '  of  Plato  and  Aristotle. 
Our  political  standards  have  been  purely  quantitative  : 
we  have  gloated  over  statistics  of  population,  of  land  areas, 
and  of  trade  returns,  as  if  these  constituted  greatness, 
and  their  increase  progress.  We  have  forgotten  that 
hitherto  the  nations  which  have  put  mankind  and  posterity 


138  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

most  in  their  debt  have  been  small  States — -Israel,  Athens, 
Florence,  Elizabethan  England.  Mankind  has  honoured  its 
destroyers  and  persecuted  its  benefactors,  building  palaces 
for  living  brigands,  and  tombs  for  long-dead  prophets. 
It  is  this  perpetual  unfaithfulness  to  the  idea  of  the  State 
which  has  led  to  these  passionate  revolts  against  it.  The 
cause  of  our  country  ought  to  mean  for  us  Englishmen 
the  defence  and  triumph  of  those  good  qualities  which  our 
country  may  rightly  claim  as  its  own — the  whole  complex 
of  moral  attributes  which  make  up  the  idea  of  that  noble 
type,  the  English  Gentleman.  It  should  also  mean  for  us 
the  preservation  of  the  great  language  and  literature  of  our 
people,  and  their  traditions  of  liberty,  personal  independ- 
ence, and  fair  play.  Are  these  to  be  swamped  in  a  bitter 
struggle  for  problematical  economic  rights  or  privileges, 
a  struggle  in  which  we  are  to  be  allied  with  foreigners 
against  another  class  of  our  own  countrymen  ?  That  is 
not  the  way  to  purify  the  idea  of  the  State.  Rather  we 
should  keep  the  vision  of  the  City  of  God  before  our  eyes, 
and  try  to  realise  the  highest  and  most  spiritual  values  in 
the  life  of  our  country. 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      139 


(v)  KELIGION  AND  THE  STATE 

An  impartial  consideration  of  the  various  forms  of 
State  which  have  appeared  in  human  history,  and  of  the 
various  theories  and  ideals  which  thinkers  have  evolved 
in  the  course  of  their  attempts  to  devise  a  perfect  scheme 
of  government,  must  lead  the  student  to  one  conclusion. 
Good  government  is  the  hardest  of  all  problems,  and  it 
has  never  yet  been  solved.  Political  history  is  an  almost 
unrelieved  tragedy,  because  there  has  never  yet  been  a 
hopeful  experiment  that  did  not  break  down  after  a  time  ; 
there  has  never  been  a  constitution  that  did  not  bear 
within  itself  the  seeds  of  its  own  decay  and  dissolution. 
Theocracy,  which  in  theory  is  the  organisation  of  man- 
kind under  the  authority  of  divine  revelation,  has  in 
practice  meant  the  domination  of  a  priestly  caste  ruling 
by  superstitious  fear  and  fraud,  and  extorting  money  by 
false  pretences.  The  City  State  of  Greece  and  medieval 
Italy,  unrivalled  as  a  forcing-house  of  genius,  and  the 
mother  of  the  arts  and  sciences,  has  been  the  shortest-lived 
of  any  form  of  polity.  Nor  have  the  philosophic  struc- 
tures reared  on  this  foundation  done  much  more  than 
serve  as  models  for  the  impracticable  Utopias  which 
idealists  of  all  ages  have  loved  to  build  in  the  clouds. 
Koman  imperialism  and  the  dual  world-empire  which  was 
its  heir  looked  imposing,  while  '  the  world  '  meant  the 
countries  round  the  Mediterranean  ;  but  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire  was  a  phantom,  the  ghost  of  the  mighty  power 
wielded  by  the  Caesars  ;  and  the  Roman  Church  was 
never  able  to  make  good  its  claim  to  be  the  one  legitimate 
embodiment  of  the  Christian  faith.  Its  pretensions  were 
always  far  beyond  its  power  to  realise  them  ;  and  now 
that  its  rival  and  counterpart  has  ceased  to  exist  even 
in  name,  these  pretensions  have  lost  their  intelligible 
explanation.  The  most  powerful  modern  nations  have 
repudiated  their  spiritual  allegiance  to  Rome  ;  and  though 
the  Latin  countries  are  so  far  negatively  faithful  to  the 
old  caput  orbis  that  they  have  shown  but  little  disposition 


140  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

to  adopt  any  other  form  of  religion,  their  culture  has  in 
fact  broken  loose  from  ecclesiastical  control,  or  where  it 
has  not  done  so  it  has  remained  in  a  backward  and 
barbarous  condition.  Roman  Catholicism  everywhere 
confronts  modern  civilisation  as  an  enemy,  and  that  is 
precisely  why  it  has  so  much  more  political  power  than 
Protestantism.  The  opponents  of  '  the  ideas  of  1789,'  and 
even  discontented  provinces  which  have  no  uniting  prin- 
ciples except  antipathy  to  the  central  government,  tend 
to  place  themselves  under  the  leadership  of  the  Roman 
Church,  and  to  take  advantage  of  its  incomparable  gifts 
for  organisation,  discipline,  and  cunning  intrigue.  Pro- 
testantism has  amalgamated  far  more  closely  with  the 
development  of  secular  culture,  so  that  in  Protestant 
countries  it  is  impossible  to  form  strong  political  parties 
of  clericalists.  Religion  with  us  is  no  monopoly  of 
Conservatives,  Liberals,  or  Socialists  ;  still  less  does  it 
desire  to  be  a  '  party  of  the  Centre,'  separated  from  all  of 
them,  and  devoted  to  the  interests  of  an  international 
corporation. 

The  apotheosis  of  nationalism  which  marks  the  modern 
period  has  probably  nearly  reached  its  term.  It  was 
from  the  first  morally  indefensible;  and  it  has  ended  by 
plunging  the  world  into  the  greatest  calamity  that  has  ever 
befallen  it,  a  disaster  which  has  brought  ruin  and  desola- 
tion to  half  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  which  has  shaken 
the  whole  fabric  of  civilisation  to  its  base.  Nationalism 
in  its  extreme  Machiavellian  form  is  discredited  ;  and  the 
internationalism  which  offers  itself  as  the  alternative  does 
not  seem  to  have  any  promise  for  the  future ;  for  it  is  not 
based  on  any  love  for  mankind,  or  any  real  desire  for 
peace  and  goodwill.  The  two  international  organisations 
which  confront  each  other  are  ultramontane  Catholicism, 
which  is  the  service  of  a  militant  corporation  existing 
rather  for  its  own  ends  than  for  the  welfare  of  humanity  ; 
and  international  Socialism,  which  is  frankly  based  on  a 
predatory  class-war.  There  are  other  international  forces, 
such  as  finance,  art,  philosophy,  and  science  ;  but  these 
are  not  political  organisations,  and  do  not  even  aim  at 
any  new  integration  of  society. 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      141 

As  Dr.  Bussell  says  in  a  recently  published  lecture, 
'  the  very  root-principles  of  the  man  in  the  street  are 
shaken,  and  no  one  knows  to  whom  or  to  what  he  owes 
allegiance.  The  disappearance  of  monarchy,  except  in  a 
few  cases,  has  removed  an  intelligible  principle  of  personal 
loyalty,  leaving  a  void  which  no  one  at  present  even 
proposes  to  fill.  Instead  of  a  unifying  influence,  the 
government  of  the  modern  State  tends  to  be  frankly 
sectarian  and  partisan  ;  it  has  no  stability  and  no  general 
popular  support.  It  is  at  the  mercy  of  plotters  and 
anarchists  no  less  than  the  older  personal  monarchies. 
While  founded,  at  least  in  theory,  on  a  popular  franchise, 
it  creates  no  affection  or  respect  among  the  people.  .  .  . 
Meantime,  if  government  is  weaker  and  more  precarious  in 
its  tenure,  it  is  asked  to  do  more.  It  is  saddled,  by  general 
consent  or  apathy,  with  duties  and  functions  which  it 
cannot  possibly  fulfil.  It  does  not  seem  to  be  developing, 
here  or  elsewhere,  into  a  responsible  directorate  of  business 
men — a  somewhat  sordid,  but  still  working,  hypothesis 
for  society  and  its  rulers.  It  is  still  largely  composed  of 
amateurs  detached,  by  an  unreal  public  life  and  its  catch- 
words, from  any  true  knowledge  of  men  and  women. 
Those  who  demand  its  interference  most  warmly  are  the 
least  confident  of  its  motives  and  its  ability.  In  the 
general  chaos  of  thought  to-day,  nothing  is  commoner 
than  to  find  the  same  treatise  insisting  on  the  universal 
control  or  competence  of  the  State,  and  yet  holding  up 
as  an  ideal  the  unfettered  freedom  of  the  subject,  his 
conscience  and  his  movements.  .  .  .  The  State  is  now 
stripped  of  its  venerable  trappings  and  exposed  in  all  its 
nakedness  as  a  hotbed  of  intrigue,  waste,  and  self-seeking. 
No  one  cares  or  troubles  to  define  democracy,  and  the 
old  constitutional  methods  of  vote  and  parliament  and 
debate  seem  highly  unpopular.  The  prevailing  features 
of  modern  life  are  impatience,  distrust,  and  an  unwilling- 
ness to  set  to  work  until  the  meaning  and  worth  of  work 
are  explained.' 

This  analysis  of  our  present  condition  seems  to  me 
entirely  true,  and  I  would  lay  special  stress  on  the  com- 
plete discredit  into  which  ballot-box  democracy  has 


142  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

fallen.  Those  who  still  babble  about  the  '  General  Will ' 
only  want  a  stick  with  which  to  beat  the  life  out  of 
minorities,  and  an  excuse  for  relieving  politicians  of  all 
moral  responsibility.  It  seems  as  though  all  the  expe- 
dients for  establishing  an  ordered  human  polity  had  been 
tried,  and  that  all  have  failed. 

But  we  may  be  reminded  that  this  is  the  age  of  science, 
and  that  science  has  tried  its  hand  at  moral  and  political 
philosophy.  Perhaps  what  we  want  may  be  found  here. 
The  new  knowledge  ought  surely  to  have  something  new 
to  teach  us  about  the  art  and  philosophy  of  government. 
This  claim  has  been  made.  As  Professor  David  Ritchie 
says  :  '  Evolution  has  become  not  merely  a  theory  but  a 
creed,  not  merely  a  conception  of  the  universe,  but  a 
guide  to  direct  us  how  to  order  our  lives.'  It  is  in  this 
aspect  that  we  have  to  consider  the  social  ethics  of  science. 
Can  we  find  in  its  teachings  a  realm  of  ideas  which  may 
form  a  standard  for  social  life,  to  take  the  place  of  the 
supernatural  sanctions  which  are  no  longer  operative  in 
the  nations  of  the  West  ?  Can  we  retrace  the  steps  of 
philosophy  to  its  earliest  beginnings  in  Ionia,  when  Thales 
and  his  successors  sought  to  find  in  the  ultimate  con- 
stitution of  matter  and  the  laws  of  nature  a  basis  for 
individual  and  public  morality  ? 

I  do  not  think  that  the  scientific  school  has  produced 
any  political  philosopher  of  the  first  rank.  Darwin  wisely 
confined  himself  to  his  own  subject,  though  it  was  Malthus 
on  Population  that  first  set  him  thinking  on  biological 
problems.  Herbert  Spencer,  though  he  does  not  by  any 
means  deserve  the  acrimonious  aspersions  of  critics  who 
hate  him  on  political  grounds,  started  with  strong  pre- 
judices— those  of  a  Radical  dissenter — and  never  corrected 
them  by  study  of  earlier  writers  on  political  philosophy. 
His  education  on  this  side  remained  very  scrappy,  and  it 
is  not  difficult  to  trace  some  of  his  leading  ideas  to  their 
source  in  the  few  books  which  he  had  read.  '  Morality,' 
he  said,  '  is  a  species  of  transcendental  physiology.'  The 
adjective  gave  admittance  to  a  mystical  theory  of  '  life,' 
as  a  quasi-divine  force,  operating  in  all  nature,  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest  forms — a  Plotinian  doctrine  which 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      143 

he  probably  borrowed  from  S.  T.  Coleridge.     This  loan 
from  Platonism  was  given  a  peculiar  character  by  com- 
bining it  with  a  doctrine  of  universal  evolution,  which 
was  then  in  the  air,  and  which  Spencer  began  to  hold 
before  the  appearance   of  Darwin's  famous   book.     The 
process   of   upward   development,  according  to  Spencer, 
is  always  in  the  direction  of  higher  individuation.     The 
higher  organisms  are  more  complex  and  more  specialised. 
This  furnishes  him  with  a  teleological  standard  of  value, 
to  which,   as  he  supposes,  all  nature  tries  to  conform. 
By   a   very   superficial   reading   of   history,    he   regards 
militarism  as  a  lower  integration  of  the  social  organism, 
and    industrialism    as    a    higher    stage — a    condition    of 
differentiation.     He  looked  forward  to  a  time  when  this 
differentiation  into  independent  units  should  be  complete, 
after  which  he  hoped  that  an   '  equilibrium  '  would  be 
reached,  and  the  individual  would  be  free  from  all  external 
control  in  a  permanent  and  '  static  '  paradise  of  unlimited 
liberty  and  low  taxes.     It  is  not  easy  to  reconcile  this 
ideal  with  all  that  he  says  about  the  social  organism,  nor 
to  defend  his  rather  absurd  analogy  between  the  State 
and  our  bodily  frame,  with  nerves  for  telegraph  wires, 
and  so  on.     But  it  is  his  justification  of  competition,  as 
'  a  beneficent  private  war,  which  makes  one  man  strive 
to  stand  on  the  shoulders  of  another,'  which  has  made 
so  many  writers  of  the  younger  generation  treat  him  as 
a  personal  enemy.    Only  a  middle-class  Victorian  English- 
man   could    have    fallen    into    the    error    of  contrasting 
militarism    with    industrialism — two    systems    which,    as 
Germany  has  shown,  may  easily  be  fellow-workmen  and 
fellow-conspirators.     Strauss,  who  goes  even  further  than 
Spencer  in  his  dislike  of  trade  unionism,  advising  that 
employers  '  should  send  to  foreign  countries  for  workmen, 
and  then  let  the  refractory  see  who  will  be  able  to  hold 
out  longest,'  defends  military  conquest  as  well  as  social 
inequality  as  right,  because  natural,  and  ridicules  those 
who  hope  for  or  expect  the  abolition  of  war.     Mr.  Clodd 
sees  that  militarism  and  industrial  competition  are  equally 
war,  though  the  weapons  are  different,  and  thinks  that 
war.  in  one  form  or  the  other,  is  a  law  of  nature.     '  Man's 


144  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

normal  state  is  one  of  conflict ;  further  back  than  we  can 
trace,  it  impelled  the  defenceless  bipeds  from  whom  he 
sprung  to  unity,  and  the  more  so  because  of  their  relative 
inferiority  in  physique  to  many  other  animals.  The 
struggle  was  ferocious,  and  under  one  form  or  another 
rages  along  the  line  to  this  day.  "  There  is  no  discharge 
in  that  war."  It  may  change  its  tactics  and  its  weapons  ; 
the  military  method  may  be  more  or  less  superseded  by 
the  industrial,  a  man  may  be  mercilessly  starved  instead 
of  being  mercilessly  slain  ;  but  be  it  war  of  camp  or 
markets,  the  ultimate  appeal  is  to  force  of  brain  or  muscles, 
and  the  hardest  or  craftiest  win.'  It  was  indeed  plain 
that  the  '  survival  of  the  fittest '  can  only  mean  that 
those  survive  who  are  fittest  to  survive,  not  the  fittest  by 
any  moral  standard  ;  evolutionary  optimism,  though  it 
continued  to  be  preached  by  many,  was  an  amiable 
superstition,  based  perhaps  on  the  superficial  Deism  of 
the  eighteenth  century. 

And  so,  while  Darwinism  was  applauded  in  Germany 
as  giving  the  blessing  of  science  to  militarist  government 
and  Machiavellian  politics,  English  Darwinians,  unwilling 
to  accept  so  unwelcome  a  conclusion,  were  driven  to  what 
a  more  theological  age  would  have  called  Manichean 
dualism.  '  Nature,'  says  Huxley,  '  is  no  school  of  virtue, 
but  the  headquarters  of  the  enemy  of  ethical  nature.' 
The  '  cosmic  process  '  is  frankly  handed  over  to  Ahriman, 
and  man,  who  is  endowed  with  an  ethical  sense  which  at 
every  point  revolts  against  Nature's  methods,  has  been 
given,  or  has  given  himself,  the  formidable  task  of  '  resist- 
ing the  cosmic  process.'  Man  is  on  one  side  a  self-asserting 
natural  organism,  and  on  another  a  self-renouncing  social 
being.  But  what  is  the  foundation  of  this  moral  sense 
which  flies  in  the  face  of  Nature  ?  Huxley  gives  no  clear 
answer  ;  Wallace,  who  felt  the  same  horror  at  Nature's 
methods,  was  driven  to  postulate  '  an  influx  from  the 
unseen  universe  of  spirit,'  thus  definitely  joining  the  ranks 
of  theism. 

These  scientific  dualists  were  undoubtedly  dismayed 
by  what  seemed  to  be  the  unavoidable  conclusions  to 
which  evolutionary  ethics  must  lead  in  practical  politics. 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      145 

If  '  history  is  a  good  aristocrat,'  science  seemed  to  be  a 
very  heartless  kind  of  Tory,  or  even  a  Prussian  militarist. 
This  was  so  contrary  to  the  main  current  of  opinion  at 
the  time,  which  was  pacifist  and  humanitarian,  that 
science,  which  at  one  time  in  Queen  Victoria's  reign 
seemed  to  be  in  possession  of  the  intellectual  field,  has  been 
assailed  by  new  enemies  from  every  side.  The  remarkable 
work  of  Aliotta,  '  The  Idealistic  Reaction  against  Science,' 
gives  a  good  survey  of  the  miscellaneous  host  of  allies — 
Neo-Kantians,  Voluntarists,  Pragmatists,  Activists,  and 
others,  who  have  tried  to  subvert  the  foundations  of  the 
scientific  world-view.  These  intellectual  campaigns  have 
been  assisted  by  orthodox  theology,  overjoyed  at  finding 
such  allies  against  its  old  enemy  ;  by  sentimentalists  of 
every  kind  ;  and  by  the  inheritors  of  the  '  ideas  of  1789/ 
whose  idola  fori  were  faring  very  badly  at  the  hands  of 
biologists.  Further,  the  widening  cleft  between  a  philo- 
sophy based  on  physics,  and  a  philosophy  based  on  the 
study  of  living  organisms,  with  psychology  as  its  crown, 
threatened  to  break  up  natural  science  from  within,  and 
was  of  great  service  to  its  enemies.  The  scientists,  who 
not  long  ago  claimed  to  be  the  dictators  of  morality  and 
the  expounders  of  the  whole  scheme  of  the  universe,  are 
in  danger  of  being  ousted  altogether  from  philosophy, 
ethics,  and  politics,  and  being  bidden  to  confine  them- 
selves to  the;r  laboratories.  As  an  example  of  the  language 
which  is  popular  to-day,  I  will  quote  a  sentence  from  a 
very  able  writer,  to  whom  I  acknowledge  great  obligations 
in  these  lectures,  Mr.  Ernest  Barker.  '  It  may  still  remain 
a  matter  of  doubt  whether  ethics  and  politics,  which 
belong  to  the  sphere  of  mind,  will  gain  by  the  importation 
into  their  sphere,  in  whatever  way,  of  tho,  laws  of  the 
natural  world/  The  laws  of  mind,  he  almost  seems  to 
imply,  are  independent  of  the  natural  world.  What  must 
be  the  dread  of  naturalism  in  politics  which  can  entrap 
a  philosopher  and  a  learned  student  of  Plato  and  Aristotle 
into  such  a  statement  as  this  ? 

I  have  not  the  least  doubt  that  this  '  reaction  against 
science  '  is  shallow,  transient,  and  retrograde.  No  doubt 
the  self-confident  scientists  of  the  last  century  brought 


146  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

it  on  themselves.  They  knew  so  little  of  metaphysics  that 
they  supposed  the  world  as  interpreted  by  science  to  be 
an  objectively  existing  material  structure,  independent  of 
the  human  mind.  They  attempted  to  interpret  life  by 
the  laws  of  inorganic  matter.  They  thought  that  they 
had  disposed  of  Christianity  by  challenging  it  to  sub- 
stantiate miracles.  Some  of  them  were  carried  away  by 
the  popular  delusion  that  the  world  is  necessarily  getting 
better  of  its  own  accord  ;  they  were,  many  of  them, 
incompetent  judges  outside  their  own  subject,  and  they 
did  not  know  it. 

But  there  is  no  sign  whatever  of  the  '  bankruptcy  of 
science  '  which  some  of  its  enemies  have  been  proclaiming. 
Its  methods  continue  to  work  ;  they  win  new  and  signal 
triumphs  every  year  ;  and  can  any  thinker  now  be  satisfied 
to  cut  the  world  of  knowledge  in  two  with  a  hatchet,  and 
to  separate  religion,  ethics,  and  politics  from  the  study 
of  nature  ?  It  is  not  philosophers  who  are  attracted  by 
such  a  theory  ;  it  is  politicians.  They  heap  scorn  on  those 
whom  they  call  '  intellectuals,'  not  because  they  are 
wrong,  but  because  they  are  few.  They  ignore  the  fact 
that  they  have  to  deal  with  Nature  herself,  who,  as 
Plotinus  says,  is  not  in  the  habit  of  talking,  but  who  is 
in  the  habit  of  striking. 

The  new  knowledge  has,  in  fact,  made  many  changes 
in  religion,  in  ethics,  and  in  politics.  It  has  made  an 
end  of  the  supernaturalistic  dualism  which  has  been  the 
hypothesis  of  Catholicism.  There  are  not  two  orders — 
the  natural  and  the  supernatural — dovetailed  into  each 
other  on  the  same  plane.  We  can  no  longer  (unless  we 
are  on  a  coroner's  jury"1  explain  a  mysterious  event  as 
an  act  of  God,  because  (as  has  been  said)  we  don't  know 
what  the  devil  else  to  call  it.  Many '  false  opinions '  (^evSets 
Sofat)  have  been  undermined.  The  ridiculous  dogma  that 
men  are  born  equal  is  dead  if  not  buried.  The  '  sanctity 
of  human  life  '  must  give  way  to  the  obvious  truth  that 
a  garden  needs  weeding.  The  question  of  population, 
which  Huxley  rightly  discerned  to  be  '  the  problem  of 
problems,'  will  have  to  be  thoroughly  investigated"with 
reference  to  the  health  and  welfare  of  the  next  and  future 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      147 

generations.  These  are  only  examples  of  the  ethics  of 
the  future,  which  modern  science  has  made  inevitable. 
The  nation  that  learns  these  lessons  first  will  lead  the 
world  in  civilisation  and  good  government. 

It  is  a  blunder  to  call  scientific  ethics  '  materialistic.' 
The  word  is  a  mere  term  of  abuse  for  anything  that  we 
do  not  like.  If  we  believe  in  God,  the  laws  of  nature  are 
the  laws  of  God  for  the  world  in  which  we  live.  We 
know  them  only  through  the  reason  which  God  has  given 
us  ;  and  it  is  that  reason  which  finds  law  and  order  in 
the  dance  of  atoms  which  is  all  that  can  be  said  to  be 
presented  to  us  from  without.  The  laws  of  nature  are  a 
large  part  of  Divine  revelation.  If  we  disregard  them, 
and  make,  as  Heracleitus  said,  a  private  world  of  our 
own,  we  shall  not  be  '  splendid  rebels,'  but  fools.  And 
science  is  no  friend  either  to  selfishness  or  to  hedonism. 
Self-sacrifice  is  part  of  nature's  law. 

It  is  however  a  legitimate  question  to  ask  whether, 
besides  the  evolution  of  species,  there  is  an  evolution  of 
ideas  which  obeys  the  same  law  favouring  the  survival 
of  the  fittest,  but  is  relatively  independent  of  biological 
change.  The  question  is  important,  because  if  human 
nature  can  only  improve  by  the  agency  of  natural  or 
rational  selection,  the  hope  of  conspicuous  progress  within 
so  brief  a  period  as  500  or  1000  years  would  seem  to  be 
small,  unless  or  until  we  know  enough  of  the  laws  of 
heredity  to  breed  for  moral  improvement. 

No  one  can  deny  the  immense  progress  of  knowledge 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  carries  with  it  important  ethical 
implications  ;  nor  the  cumulative  weight  of  experience 
gained  by  the  method  of  trial  and  error.  And  it  is  by 
no  means  easy  to  separate  this  kind  of  progress  from 
improvement  in  human  nature  itself.  To  say  that  environ- 
ment does  not  modify  character  is  untenable.  But  the 
evolution  of  ideas  is  not  necessarily  towards  a  higher 
morality,  any  more  than  biological  evolution  is  necessarily 
towards  the  production  of  '  higher '  or  more  complex 
types.  Civilisation  rmay  pursue  a  course  which  brings 
present  success  and  future  ruin.  Or  ideas  may  stagnate, 
and  cause  a  whole  civilisation  to  stagnate  too.  There  are 


148  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

several  instances  in  history  of  a  degeneration  of  ideas, 
comparable  to  the  change  of  a  freely  moving  animal  into 
a  parasite.  The  evolution  of  ideas  is  not  a  purely  bio- 
logical process  ;  but  it  is  strictly  limited  by  the  innate 
capabilities  of  each  generation  which  acts  as  carriers  to 
the  ideas.  A  bad  social  organisation  will  produce  a 
counter-selection — the  worse  ideas  will  tend  to  prevail. 

The  lower  animals,  acting  from  instinct  rather  than 
reason,  (though  I  cannot  allow  that  these  faculties  are 
mutually  exclusive,)  subordinate  self-preservation  to  the 
interests  of  the  race.  For  us  there  is  a  conflict  between 
self-regarding  and  external  duties.  We  have  to  '  save  our 
own  souls  ' — to  make  the  best  of  our  lives — and  we  have 
to  consider  the  welfare  of  others,  especially  of  posterity. 
These  duties  conflict,  except  upon  the  highest  plane  ;  and 
purely  scientific  or  naturalistic  ethics  cannot,  I  think, 
prevent  them  from  conflicting.  Nor  can  biology  give  us 
any  clear  answer  to  the  question  whether  our  duty  is  to 
serve  humanity  as  a  whole,  or  the  particular  national  or 
social  group  to  which  we  belong.  In  short,  though  science 
has  revealed  new  duties,  and  has  increased  our  knowledge 
of  those  laws  of  nature  which,  in  Bacon's  words,  we  can 
only  conquer  by  obeying  them,  it  does  not  possess  any 
dynamic  which  can  lift  our  lives  to  the  spiritual  realm  in 
which  alone  our  higher  natures  are  at  home,  and  which 
alone  can  give  us  an  absolute  standard  whereby  to  measure 
all  human  actions  and  aspirations.  The  neglect  of  scientific 
sociology  is  deplorable  ;  but  naturalism  is  an  abstract  and 
defective  view  of  life,  against  which  men  will  always  be  in 
revolt.  We  cannot  accept  a  view  of  the  world  which 
practically  leaves  us  out. 

We  are  therefore  compelled  to  reject  the  idea  of  a 
purely  scientific  State  as  the  solution  of  our  problem  ; 
not  because  science  is  '  materialistic/  for  it  is  not ;  but 
because  science  concentrates  itself  upon  a  particular  kind 
of  values,'  leaving  others  out  of  account.  And  when 
an  attempt  is  made  to  construct  a  rounded  scheme  of 
reality,  those  values  which  are  excluded  are  virtually 
repudiated. 

If  I  were  asked  to  state  in  one  word  the  cause  of  the 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      H9 

failure  of  our  civilisation,  I  should  answer  '  Secularism.' 
There  must  surely  be  some  very  deep  ground  for  the  uni- 
versal discontent  and  malaise  which  have  overtaken  Western 
civilisation.  There  is  but  little  happiness  and  content 
anywhere,  and  the  reason  is  that  we  have  lost  faith  in  the 
values  which  should  be  the  motive  force  of  social  life.  Capi- 
talism is  in  danger,  not  so  much  from  the  envious  attacks 
of  the  unpropertied,  as  from  the  decay  of  that  Puritan 
asceticism  which  was  its  creator.  The  glory  of  subduing 
the  earth  and  producing  something — no  matter  what — 
on  a  large  scale  ;  the  accumulation  of  wealth,  not  for  en- 
joyment, but  as  the  means  of  increased  power  and  the 
instrument  of  new  enterprise — -this  conception  of  a  worthy 
and  God-fearing  life  no  longer  appeals  to  men  as  it  did.  The 
capitalist  now  is  too  often  an  idler  or  a  gambler,  and  as 
such  he  can  justify  his  existence  neither  to  himself  nor  to 
others.  The  working-man  also  has  too  often  no  pride  and 
no  conscience  in  his  work.  He  works  in  the  spirit  of  a 
slave,  grudgingly  and  bitterly,  and  then  ascribes  his  un- 
happiness  to  the  conditions  of  his  employment.  He  is 
becoming  well  educated  ;  but  he  twists  everything  round, 
even  religion,  to  his  alleged  economic  grievances,  and 
loses  sight  of  higher  interests.  Industrialism  drags  on, 
because  the  alternative  is  starvation  ;  but  the  life  and 
joy  have  gone  out  of  it,  and  it  seems  likely  to  pass  into  a 
state  of  gradual  decay.  Civilisation  presents  the  spectacle 
of  a  mighty  tree  which  is  dying  at  the  roots.  When  masses 
of  men  begin  to  ask  simultaneously  '  Is  it  all  worth  while  ? 
What  is  the  use  of  this  great  Babylon  that  we  have  builded  ? ' 
we  are  reminded  that  the  medieval  casuists  classified 
acedia,  which  is  just  this  temper,  among  the  seven  deadly 
sins.  We  had  almost  forgotten  acedia,  and  few  know  the 
meaning  of  the  word  ;  but  it  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  diseases 
from  which  we  are  suffering- — -the  frivolous  and  joyless 
emptiness  of  life  among  the  rich,  and  the  bitter  discontent 
of  the  hand- workers. 

Troeltsch,  writing  about  twelve  years  ago,  after  men- 
tioning the  decline  of  Calvinistic  asceticism,  the  character 
of  which  he  was  one  of  the  first  to  lay  bare,  names  as  '  the 
final  characteristic  of  the  modern  spirit  '  '  its  self-confident 


150  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

optimism  and  belief  in  progress.  This  (he  says)  was  an 
accompanying  phenomenon  of  the  struggle  for  freedom 
in  the  period  of  illuminism,  which  without  such  a  confidence 
could  not  have  broken  the  old  chains,  and  it  then  found 
confirmation  in  a  multitude  of  new  discoveries  and  new 
creations.  The  old  cosmic  conceptions  dominated  by  the 
Fall,  the  redemption  of  the  world,  and  the  final  judgment, 
have  fallen  away.  To-day  everything  is  filled  with  the 
thought  of  development  and  of  progress  upward  from  the 
depths  of  darkness  to  unknown  heights.  The  despairing 
sense  of  sin,  the  sense  of  a  great  world-suffering  imposed 
upon  us  for  our  purification  and  punishment,  have  been 
banished.'  Since  Troeltsch  wrote  these  words,  the  baseless- 
ness of  this  secular  optimism  has  been  thoroughly  exposed. 
The  loss  of  a  faith,  even  of  a  fantastic  dream  like  this,  is  a 
grave  matter  for  humanity.  But  it  was  after  all  a  will-o'- 
the-wisp  ;  and  now  that  it  is  gone,  the  path  is  open  for  a 
truer  philosophy  of  history,  based  on  a  truer  philosophy 
of  life  itself. 

Troeltsch  is  confident  that  '  a  Church-directed  civilisa- 
tion '  is  no  longer  possible.  This  is  certainly  true,  while 
the  Church  cannot  make  up  its  mind  whether  to  go  into 
politics  or  to  stand  aloof  from  them.  A  Church  which 
allied  itself  whole-heartedly  with  Conservatism  or  with 
Revolution  might  conceivably  '  direct  civilisation  '  again, 
of  course  at  the  cost  of  complete  apostasy  from  the  religion 
of  Christ.  And  a  Church  which  determined  to  combat 
spiritual  evil  with  spiritual  weapons,  confronting  '  the 
World  '  with  another  standard  of  values,  and  offering 
mankind  the  blessedness  promised  by  Christ  to  all  who  will 
renounce  the  world  and  follow  Him,  might  also  conceivably 
win  civilisation  to  make  trial,  for  the  first  time  on  a  large 
scale,  of  those  doctrines  which  would  in  truth  solve  all  the 
gravest  of  our  problems.  But  a  secularised  Christianity, 
such  as  is  now  preached  from  our  pulpits,  serves  neither 
God  nor  man  ;  '  it  is  good  for  nothing,  but  to  be  cast  out 
and  trodden  under  foot  of  men/  It  tries  to  please  men 
who  have  obviously  no  conscious  religious  needs,  no  sense 
of  sin,  no  craving  for  redemption  from  it,  '  whose  god  is 
their  belly,  whose  glory  is  in  their  shame,  who  mind  earthly 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      151 

things.'  St.  Paul's  climax  has  corne  to  sound  in  our  ears 
as  a  bathos  ;  but  it  is  not. 

Eucken,  whose  whole  philosophy  is  based  on  a  sharp 
opposition  between  the  earthly  and  the  spiritual  life,  thinks 
that  there  is  a  danger  lest  those  who  live  as  citizens  of  the 
Invisible  State  should  withdraw  from  the  visible  world, 
and  fail  to  set  their  mark  upon  it.  He  says  that  '  Christi- 
anity was  established  in  an  age  which  was  wanting  in 
vigorous  vitality,  and  was  chiefly  intent  on  gaining  a  safe 
harbour  of  refuge.  It  seemed  that  this  could  only  be  found 
in  opposition  to  the  confused  activity  of  the  world,  in  a 
supernatural  order.  ...  A  sharp  opposition  runs  through 
the  whole  history  of  Christianity,  the  opposition  between 
an  inwardness  which  withdraws  from  the  visible  world,  and 
an  adaptation  to  this  world,  with  the  danger  of  an  intrusion 
of  the  sensible  into  the  spiritual/  He  is  thinking  no  doubt 
of  monasticism,  which  may  be  justified  as  a  calling  for  a  few, 
and  which  only  becomes  too  popular  when  the  conditions 
of  life  in  the  world  are  thoroughly  miserable  and  barbarous, 
as  they  were  during  the  Dark  Ages.  At  such  times,  havens 
of  refuge  have  a  value  for  posterity,  since  they  preserve 
some  relics  of  culture  from  destruction.  On  the  whole, 
I  do  not  think  that  Christianity  has  ever  quenched  human 
activities.  It  has  been  the  religion  of  the  most  energetic 
peoples  of  the  earth,  though  I  do  not  pretend  that  they 
have  done  much  to  recommend  their  principles. 

The  Christian  attitude  may  be  summed  up  in  the  maxim, 
'  Value  spiritual  things  for  their  own  sake,  and  the  things 
of  sense  for  the  sake  of  the  spiritual.'  '  Seek  ye  first  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness,  and  all  these  things 
shall  be  added  unto  you.'  A  whole  philosophy  is  contained 
in  these  simple  words.  Those  who  in  heart  and  mind  are 
already  citizens  of  the  State  Invisible,  the  kingdom  of 
God,  will  be  inwardly  detached  from  the  external  world 
around  them  ;  but  just  as  the  mind  and  will  of  God,  which 
find  complete  expression  in  the  eternal  world,  create  con- 
tinually, by  an  inner  necessity,  the  world  of  time,  in  which 
the  thought  of  God  is  transmuted  into  vital  law,  and  the  will 
of  God  into  an  interwoven  complex  of  finite  purposes, 
so,  the  Platonists  teach  us,  the  soul  of  man,  in  the  act  of 


152  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

contemplating  the  eternal  order,  creates,  by  an  inner 
necessity,  a  copy  of  that  order  in  the  scene  of  our  temporal 
probation.  We  are  not  to  regard  this  world  as  an  end  in 
itself  ;  its  deepest  reality  is  the  complex  of  divine  purposes 
which  are  being  worked  out  in  it ;  and  since  those  purposes 
have  their  source  and  their  goal  in  the  eternal  world,  it  is 
only  by  knowing  the  eternal  world  that  we  can  know  things 
temporal  as  they  are.  The  real  is  the  ideal ;  but  a  deeper 
reality  than  our  ideals.  As  the  American  Professor 
Hocking  has  lately  written  :  '  We  have  learnt  that  we 
must  go  to  school  to  nature  to  obey  her,  without  letting 
the  will  or  fancy  mislead  us  ;  we  must  learn  the  same  lesson 
in  religion.  All  our  creativeness  must  be  within  the  frame- 
work of  that  which  independently  is.' 

The  State  Invisible  is  the  kingdom  of  absolute  values, 
the  kingdom  of  eternal  life.  It  is  because  we  have  been 
misled  into  attaching  absolute  value  to  things  that  have 
it  not,  to  man-made  institutions,  to  transient  enthusiasms, 
to  all  the  idols  of  the  cave  and  the  market-place,  that  our 
faith  in  immortality  has  come  to  burn  so  dim.  We  have, 
as  Mr,  Glutton  Brock  says,  parodied  our  certainties  in  a 
wrong  medium,  till  they  have  lost  their  certainty  for  us. 
To  some  extent  I  think  we  must  admit  that  this  scepticism 
about  a  future  life  has  been  wholesome.  Men  have  denied 
themselves  the  consolations  of  belief  because  they  are  not 
sure  that  the  values  which  it  embodies  are  absolute.  They 
feel  the  unworthiness  of  the  doctrine  of  immortality  as  it 
has  been  presented  to  them.  They  have  no  desire  for 
rewards  for  themselves  and  punishments  for  others  ;  they 
do  not  feel  that  either  are  deserved.  But  it  is  the  pre- 
vailing secularism  which  has  caused  the  belief  in  eternal 
life  to  be  swept  away  along  with  the  travesties  of  it 
which  make  up  the  picture-book  eschatology  of  the 
Churches.  If  we  looked  within,  we  should  find  both 
heaven  and  hell  there.  The  highest  human  life  tells  us 
most  about  heaven,  the  lowest  human  life  tells  us  most 
about  hell. 

The  eternal  values  are  commonly  classified  as  Goodness, 
Truth,  and  Beauty,  and  we  cannot  improve  on  that  classifi- 
cation. Goodness,  Truth,  and  Beauty  are  the  threefold 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      153 

cord  which  is  not  quickly  broken.  Here,  then,  we  have  a 
definite  content  for  the  State  Invisible  :  we  are  not  reduced 
to  talking  vaguely  about  '  Spirit/  the  word  which  so 
annoyed  a  practical  reformer  like  Luther.  Spirit  should 
be  the  fullest  of  all  concepts  ;  it  is  sometimes  in  danger  of 
being  the  emptiest.  But  if  in  place  of  this  too  general 
term  we  take  these  three  absolute  values,  Goodness,  Truth, 
and  Beauty,  and  make  it  our  ideal  that  these  shall  prevail 
'  on  earth  as  in  heaven/  we  have  a  definite  standard  and 
a  goal  in  sight.  We  also  know  our  enemies — pride,  sensu- 
ality, and  selfishness ;  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil. 
It  is  pride  which  most  prevents  us  from  keeping  our  minds 
open  and  teachable  for  the  reception  of  new  truths.  It  is 
sensuality  which  most  often  poisons  our  appreciation  of 
the  Beautiful,  so  as  even  to  make  it,  in  Tennyson's  words, 
'  procuress  to  the  lords  of  hell/  And  it  is  selfishness  which 
thwarts  and  spoils  disinterested  affection.  All  three  shut 
up  the  soul  in  itself,  and  cut  it  off  from  its  true  and  happy 
life  in  the  eternal  world. 

The  relations  between  matter  and  spirit,  between  the 
outer  and  the  inner,  between  the  visible  and  the  invisible, 
between  earth  and  heaven,  are  a  problem  never  to  be 
completely  solved.  But  it  may  be  helpful  to  remind 
ourselves,  that  the  contrast  between  outer  and  inner  is 
misleading.  The  inner  world  is  the  whole  field  of  con- 
sciousness, from  which  the  physical  world  is  a  selection. 
Practical  needs  and  the  pursuit  of  specialised  knowledge 
both  tend  to  break  up  the  continuum  ;  and  language,  which 
was  made  to  express  our  needs  in  intercourse  with  each 
other,  helps  to  emphasise  an  artificial  view  of  reality.  The 
highest  and  most  universal  truths  cannot  be  fitted  into  a 
scheme  of  reality  such  as  we  construct  for  our  external  life 
in  time.  We  sometimes  try  in  vain  to  find  a  place  for  God 
inside  the  artificial  construction  which  we  mistake  for 
things  as  they  are  ;  and  when  this  attempt  fails,  we 
are  tempted  to  thrust  Him  out  altogether.  A  truer 
philosophy  will  abate  the  claims  of  natural  science  to  divide 
the  contents  of  our  consciousness  into  dreams  and  realities, 
the  former  being  all  that  an  abstract  view  of  the  world  has 
left  out ;  it  will  do  this  without  in  any  way  impairing  the 


154  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

value  of  science  as  a  revealer  of  many  of  the  laws  under 
which  we  live. 

It  is  because  man  is  a  microcosm  that  he  can  only  find 
his  full  life  in  membership.  Potentially,  we  have  all 
reality  within  us,  and  potentially  what  we  call  the  external 
world  is  a  part  of  our  higher  selves.  But,  as  Krause  has 
said  in  a  profoundly  true  passage : 

The  fellowship  of  higher  beings  with  lower  beings  is  immediate 
and  direct,  whereas  the  fellowship  of  co-ordinate  beings  on  the 
same  plane,  in  and  through  their  common  higher  spheres,  is 
mediate  and  indirect.  Community  is  everywhere  present 
whenever  the  inner  manifestations  of  the  life  of  the  beings  meet, 
mutually  influence,  and  limit  each  other  ;  and  when  at  the  same 
time  they  strive  to  maintain  and  heighten  their  independence. 
There  is  a  degree  of  community  even  when  there  is  no  recognised 
unity  of  life,  as  when  several  beings  are  useful  to  one  another  in 
a  community ;  but  such  communities  are  kept  up  merely  by 
a  common  external  interest  and  have  value  only  when  the 
members  are  held  together  by  justice. 

According  to  this  philosopher,  who  is  here  rightly  inter- 
preting the  Platonic  doctrine,  there  can  be  no  durable  and 
valuable  coherence  in  the  State  Visible,  except  so  far  as  its 
members  are  also  members  of  the  State  Invisible.  True 
union  between  human  beings  can  be  achieved  only  in  the 
spiritual  sphere  ;  in  theological  language,  it  is  only  as  sons 
of  God  that  we  are  in  any  real  and  effective  sense  brethren 
of  each  other.  Any  other  kind  of  union,  based  on  mutual 
convenience,  is  precarious  and  morally  valueless.  History 
confirms  this  view.  Associations  for  unworthy  ends  find 
it  very  difficult  to  hold  together  long  enough  to  accomplish 
the  ends  for  which  they  vrere  formed,  whereas  a  community, 
the  members  of  which  have  in  common  a  deep  religious 
conviction,  resists  all  attempts  to  disintegrate  it.  This 
fact  is  connected  with  the  necessity  which  compels  all  lower 
forms  of  association  to  curtail  the  freedom  of  their  members, 
to  impair  their  individuality,  and  turn  them  into  mere  tools. 
But  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  is  not  only  consistent  with, 
but  vitally  connected  with  the  fullest  development  and 
enhancement  of  individuality.  A  union  of  this  kind  lacks 
the  cast-iron  discipline  of  a  military  confederacy  ;  but  it 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      155 

has  creative  and  assimilative  powers  which  more  than  make 
up  for  this  deficiency.  Every  person  who  is,  by  virtue  of  his 
rich  and  consecrated  inner  life,  a  citizen  of  the  heavenly 
City,  not  only  lives  on  that  higher  plane  in  which  alone 
our  personality  is  fully  developed,  but  acts  as  a  unifying, 
integrating  force  in  society.  Love,  as  Krause  goes  on  to 
say,  is  the  living  form  of  the  organic  unification  of  all  life 
in  God.  Love  is  the  eternal  will  of  God  to  be  vitally 
present  in  all  beings,  and  to  take  back  the  life  of  all  His 
members  into  Himself  as  into  their  whole  life.  This  love 
pours  itself  into  all  beings  as  the  divine  impulse  to  rejoice 
in  the  perfection  and  beauty  of  every  being,  and  blissfully 
to  feel  this  unity  of  life.  This  is  unquestionably  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  Christian  religion,  as  we  have  it  from  the  lips 
of  its  Founder  and  of  those  who  have  best  understood  Him. 
We  are  to  regard  ourselves  as  strangers  and  pilgrims  on 
earth,  immortal  spirits  on  our  probation,  but  charged  with 
the  duty  of  making  earth,  which  is  the  shadow  of  heaven, 
as  much  like  its  archetype  as  we  can.  And  the  way  to 
do  this  is  to  develop  our  spiritual  faculties  to  the  uttermost, 
knowing  that  it  is  only  in  the  spiritual  life  that  we  really 
come  into  contact  with  our  fellow  men  as  they  are.  Social 
problems  cannot  be  solved  while  we  regard  men  merely  as 
the  subjects  of  claims  and  counter-claims  against  each 
other,  nor  can  any  legerdemain  of  legislative  machinery 
cure  the  deep-seated  vices  of  human  nature,  which  are  the 
cause  of  our  troubles.  The  mere  politician  never  awakens 
the  sense  of  sin  in  those  whom  he  addresses  ;  on  the 
contrary,  he  encourages  them  to  think  that  their  unhappi- 
ness  is  due  to  the  injustice  of  other  men.  Thus  he  directly 
fosters  hatred,  bitterness,  and  alienation ;  instead  of 
unifying  the  State,  he  disrupts  it.  We  can  all  see  how 
our  civilisation  is  falling  to  pieces  under  this  treatment. 
The  government  is  despised  and  disliked  by  all ;  the  State 
is  torn  asunder  by  warring  factions,  some  of  which  are 
openly  plundering  their  fellow-citizens  and  holding  the 
nation  to  ransom.  The  State  has  completely  lost  its  moral 
authority  and  its  power  of  evoking  reverence  and  loyalty. 
The  idea  of  the  Nation  is  not  dead  ;  men  are  still  willing 
to  die  for  their  country  ;  but  the  name  of  the  State  only 


156  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

calls  up  the  picture  of  a  collector  and  payer  of  blackmail. 
Nor  can  I  see  any  remedy  except  in  the  adoption  of  the 
Christian  standard  of  values  and  the  Christian  philosophy 
of  life. 

The  question  may  be  raised  whether  the  citizens  of  the 
State  Invisible  should  organise  themselves  as  a  Church, 
or  in  any  other  way.  Some  kind  of  mutual  support  is 
clearly  necessary.  What  the  New  Testament  calls  the 
World — human  society  as  it  organises  itself  apart  from  God 
— is  largely  a  system  of  co-operative  guilt  with  limited 
liability.  Each  member  of  it  can  shift  moral  responsibility 
upon  someone  else,  and  when  any  of  its  tools  is  conscience- 
stricken,  it  says  as  the  Chief  Priests  said  to  Judas,  '  What 
is  that  to  us  ?  See  thou  to  that.'  To  meet  this  formidable 
organisation,  there  must  be  another  society  founded  on  the 
opposite  principles,  pledged  to  assist  its  members  in  the 
promotion  of  righteousness,  peace,  and  goodwill.  Such  a 
society  constitutes  the  Invisible  Church  of  which  so  much 
has  been  said  at  various  times  of  history  ;  and  it  needs  the 
active  co-operation  of  all  high-minded  men  and  women, 
who  are  shocked  at  the  idea  of  using  for  their  own  purposes 
the  faults  and  weaknesses  of  others,  that  sinister  art  without 
which,  we  are  often  told,  it  is  impossible  to  get  anything 
done  in  this  world.  But  how  far  is  it  desirable  to  organise 
the  moral  forces  of  society  into  a  visible  corporation  ? 
Or,  to  put  the  question  otherwise,  is  the  separation  of  Church 
and  State  a  permanent  thing,  or  a  temporary  accident  ? 
On  the  one  hand,  we  must  emphasise  that  spiritual  victories 
can  be  won  only  in  their  own  field.  The  influence  of  the 
Church,  as  a  spiritual  agency,  must  be  exercised  upon  th>: 
will  and  conscience  of  men  ;  and  a  Church  that  leaves  this, 
its  legitimate  sphere,  and  goes  into  politics,  or  attempts 
to  use  coercion,  always  comes  out  badly  smirched,  and 
generally  outdoes  secular  governments  in  craft  and  cruelty. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  the  secular  State  has  no  spiritual  or 
ideal  basis,  it  is  deprived  of  the  strongest  and  noblest 
attractions  that  might  hallow  the  obedience  and  kindle 
the  devotion  of  its  members.  Nor  does  the  dualism  of 
Church  and  State  seem  altogether  natural.  The  old  idea, 
that  the  Church  is  the  nation  under  its  spiritual  aspect, 


THE  STATE,  VISIBLE  AND  INVISIBLE      157 

is  surely  the  right  one.  It  is  impracticable  at  present, 
partly  because  the  spiritual  Roman  Empire,  with  its  claims 
to  super-national  or  extra-national  obedience,  still  survives, 
a  relic  of  the  dead  world-empire  still  vigorous  in  the  midst 
of  modern  nationalism  ;  and  partly  because  the  Church 
has  split  up  into  smaller  corporations,  none  of  which  is 
capable  of  acting  as  the  complete  embodiment  of  the  religion 
of  the  nation,  while  many  prefer  to  stand  outside  all 
religious  organisations.  But  if  the  State  could  once  more 
place  itself  under  the  protection  of  religion — not  in  the 
sense  that  it  should  be  controlled  by  priests,  but  that  it 
should  be  recognised  by  all,  as  it  was  in  Greek  antiquity,  as 
a  moral  institution,  existing  to  promote  the  highest  possible 
life  among  its  citizens,  we  might  hope  to  see  a  great  improve- 
ment in  the  lamentably  low  standard  of  international 
morality,  and  a  diminution  in  the  sordid  corruption, 
class  bribery,  and  intrigue  which  mar  democratic  politics. 
If  politicians  came  to  regard  themselves  as  the  priests  or 
officers  of  a  holy  corporation,  pledged  to  stand  or  fall  by 
the  noblest  ideals,  the  whole  spirit  of  political  life  would  be 
altered,  and  instead  of  lagging  far  behind  even  the  most 
mediocre  standard  of  private  morality,  the  State  might  set 
an  example  of  high-minded  justice,  generosity,  and  chivalry. 
There  does  not  seem  to  be  any  reason  in  the  nature  of  things, 
why  governments  should  be  unjust  in  foreign  policy,  nor 
why  they  should  appeal  to  the  worst  passions  of  the  electors, 
their  cupidity,  pugnacity,  and  mean  prejudices.  The 
evil  is  partly  due  to  a  mutual  shifting  of  responsibility. 
The  government  says  '  We  are  only  the  servants  of  the 
people '  ;  the  people  say  '  We  must  leave  it  to  the  govern- 
ment to  tell  us  what  is  right.'  Men  of  high  character 
either  keep  out  of  politics  or  are  driven  out  of  them,  and 
this  is  most  true  in  the  most  democratic,  which  are  also 
the  most  secularised  States. 

The  dualism  of  Church  and  State  may  some  day  come 
to  an  end  ;  and  the  truths  which  underlie  both  Hebrew 
theocracy  and  Greek  political  philosophy  may  be  brought 
together  in  some  form  of  polity  which  can  also  find  room 
for  the  ideals  of  a  spiritual  world-commonwealth  and  of  a 
purified  and  exalted  patriotism. 


THE  IDEA  OF  PROGRESS 

THE  belief  in  Progress,  not  as  an  ideal  but  as  an  indis- 
putable fact,  not  as  a  task  for  humanity  but  as  a  law  of 
Nature,  has  been  the  working  faith  of  the  West  for  about 
a  hundred  and  fifty  years.  Some  would  have  us  believe 
that  it  is  a  long  neglected  part  of  the  Christian  revelation, 
others  that  it  is  a  modern  discovery.  The  ancient  Pagans, 
we  are  told,  put  their  Golden  Age  in  the  past ;  we  put  ours 
in  the  future.  The  Greeks  prided  themselves  on  being  the 
degenerate  descendants  of  gods,  we  on  being  the  very 
creditable  descendants  of  monkeys.  The  Romans  en- 
deavoured to  preserve  the  wisdom  and  virtue  of  the  past, 
we  to  anticipate  the  wisdom  and  virtue  of  the  future. 
This,  however,  is  an  exaggeration.  The  theory  of  progress 
and  the  theory  of  decadence  are  equally  natural,  and  have 
in  fact  been  held  concurrently  wherever  men  have  specu- 
lated about  their  origin,  their  present  condition,  and  their 
future  prospects.  Among  the  Jews  the  theory  of  decadence 
derived  an  inspired  authority  from  Genesis,  but  the  story 
of  the  Fall  had  very  little  influence  upon  the  thought  of 
that  tenaciously  optimistic  race.  Among  the  Greeks, 
who  had  the  melancholy  as  well  as  the  buoyancy  of  youth, 
it  was  authorised  by  Hesiod,  whose  scheme  of  retrogression 
from  the  age  of  gold  to  the  age  of  iron  was  never  forgotten 
in  antiquity.  Sophocles,  in  a  well-known  chorus  imitated 
by  Bacon,  holds  that  the  best  fate  for  men  is  '  not  to  be 
born,  or  being  born  to  die.'  Aratus  develops  the  pessimistic 
mythology  of  Hesiod.  In  the  Golden  Age  Dike  or  Astraea 
wandered  about  the  earth  freely ;  in  the  Silver  Age  her 
visits  became  fewer,  and  in  the  Brazen  Age  she  set  out 
for  heaven  and  became  the  constellation  Virgo.  Perhaps 

158 


THE  IDEA  OF  PROGRESS  159 

Horace  had  read  the  lament  of  the  goddess  :  '  What  a 
race  the  golden  sires  have  left — worse  than  their  fathers  ; 
and  your  offspring  will  be  baser  still.'  In  the  third  century 
after  Christ,  when  civilisation  was  really  crumbling,  Pagans 
and  Christians  join  in  a  chorus  of  woe.  On  the  other  side, 
the  triumphs  of  man  over  nature  are  celebrated  by  the 
great  tragedians,  and  the  Introduction  to  the  First  Book  of 
Thucydides  sketches  the  past  history  of  Greece  in  the  spirit 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  Lucretius  has  delighted  our 
anthropologists  by  his  brilliant  and  by  no  means  idealised 
description  of  savage  life,  and  it  is  to  him  that  we  owe  the 
blessed  word  Progress  in  its  modern  sense. 

Usus  et  impigrae  simul  experientia  mentis 
paulatim  docuit  pedetemtim  progredientes. 
sic  unum  quicquid  paulatim  protrahit  aetas 
in  medium,  ratioque  in  luminis  erigit  oras. 

Pliny  believes  that  each  age  is  better  than  the  last.  Seneca, 
in  a  treatise,  parts  of  which  were  read  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
reminds  us  that  '  not  a  thousand  years  have  passed  since 
Greece  counted  and  named  the  stars,  and  it  is  only  recently 
that  we  have  learned  why  the  moon  is  eclipsed.  Posterity 
will  be  amazed  that  we  did  not  know  some  things  that  will 
seem  obvious  to  them.'  '  The  world,'  he  adds,  '  is  a  poor 
affair  if  it  does  not  contain  matter  for  investigation  for  men 
in  every  age.  We  imagine  that  we  are  initiated  into  the 
mysteries  of  Nature  ;  but  we  are  still  hanging  about  her 
outer  courts.'  These  last  are  memorable  utterances,  even 
if  Seneca  confines  his  optimism  to  the  pleasure  of  explor- 
ing Nature's  secrets.  The  difference  between  Rousseau, 
who  admired  the  simple  life,  and  Condorcet,  who  believed 
in  modern  civilisation,  was  no  new  one  ;  it  was  a  common 
theme  of  discussion  in  antiquity,  and  the  ancients  were 
well  aware  that  the  same  process  may  be  called  either 
progress  or  decline.  As  Freeman  says,  '  In  history  every 
step  in  advance  has  also  been  a  step  backwards.'  (The 
picture  is  a  little  difficult  to  visualise,  but  the  meaning  is 
plain.)  The  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  always  drives 
man  from  some  paradise  or  other  ;  and  even  the  paradise 
of  fools  is  not  an  unpleasant  abode  while  it  is  habitable. 


160  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

Few  emblematic  pictures  are  more  striking  than  the 
Melencolia  (as  he  spells  it)  of  Diirer,  representing  the  Spirit 
of  the  race  sitting  mournfully  among  all  her  inventions  : 
and  this  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  age  of  discovery  !  But 
the  deepest  thought  of  antiquity  was  neither  optimistic 
nor  pessimistic.  It  was  that  progress  and  retrogression 
are  only  the  incoming  and  outgoing  tide  in  an  unchanging 
sea.  The  pulse  of  the  universe  beats  in  an  alternate  ex- 
pansion and  contraction.  The  result  is  a  series  of  cycles, 
in  which  history  repeats  itself.  Plato  contemplates  a 
world-cycle  of  36,000  solar  years,  during  which  the  Creator 
guides  the  course  of  events  ;  after  which  he  relaxes  his 
hold  of  the  machine,  and  a  period  of  the  same  length 
follows  during  which  the  world  gradually  degenerates. 
When  this  process  is  complete  the  Creator  restores  again 
the  original  conditions,  and  a  new  cycle  begins.  Aristotle 
thinks  that  all  the  arts  and  sciences  have  been  discovered 
and  lost  '  an  infinite  number  of  times.'  Virgil  in  the 
Fourth  Eclogue  tries  to  please  Augustus  by  predicting  the 
near  approach  of  a  new  Golden  Age,  which,  he  says,  is  now 
due.  This  doctrine  of  recurrence  is  not  popular  to-day ; 
but  whether  we  like  it  or  not,  no  other  view  of  the  macro- 
cosm is  even  tenable.  Even  if  those  physicists  are  right 
who  hold  that  the  universe  is  running  down  like  a  clock, 
that  belief  postulates  a  moment  in  past  time  when  the  clock 
was  wound  up  ;  and  whatever  power  wound  it  up  once 
may  presumably  wind  it  up  again.  The  doctrine  of  cycles 
was  held  by  Goethe,  who,  in  reply  to  Eckermann's  remark 
that  '  the  progress  of  humanity  seems  to  be  a  matter  of 
thousands  of  years,'  answered  :• 

Perhaps  of  millions.  Men  will  become  more  clever  and  dis- 
cerning, but  not  better  or  happier,  except  for  limited  periods. 
I  see  the  time  coming  when  God  will  take  no  more  pleasure  in 
our  race,  and  must  again  proceed  to  a  rejuvenated  creation.  I 
am  sure  that  the  time  and  hour  in  the  distant  future  are  already 
fixed  for  the  beginning  of  this  epoch.  But  we  can  still  for 
thousands  of  years  enjoy  ourselves  on  this  dear  old  playground 
of  ours. 

Nietzsche  also  maintained  the  law  of  recurrence,  and  so 
did  the  Danish  philosophic  theologian  Kierkegaard. 


THE  IDEA  OF  PROGEESS  161 

Shelley's  fine  poem,  '  The  world's  great  age  begins  anew,' 
is  based  upon  it.  Still,  I  must  admit  that  on  the  whole 
the  ancients  did  tend  to  regard  time  as  the  enemy  :  dcim- 
nosa  quid  non  imminuit  dies  ?  They  would  have  thought 
the  modern  notion  of  human  perfectibility  at  once  absurd 
and  impious. 

The  Dark  Ages  knew  that  they  were  dark,  and  we  hear 
little  talk  about  progress  during  those  seven  centuries 
which,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  might  have  been  cut  out  of 
history  without  any  great  loss  to  posterity.  The  Middle 
Ages  (which  we  ought  never  to  confuse  with  the  Dark  Ages), 
though  they  developed  an  interesting  type  of  civilisation, 
set  their  hopes  mainly  on  another  world.  The  Church  has 
never  encouraged  the  belief  that  this  world  is  steadily 
improving ;  the  Middle  Ages,  like  the  early  Christians, 
would  have  been  quite  content  to  see  the  earthly  career  of 
the  race  closed  in  their  own  time.  Even  Roger  Bacon, 
who  is  claimed  as  the  precursor  of  modern  science,  says  that 
all  wise  men  believe  that  we  are  not  far  from  the  time  of 
Antichrist,  which  was  to  be  the  herald  of  the  end.  The 
Eenaissance  was  a  conscious  recovery  from  the  longest 
and  dreariest  set-back  that  humanity  has  ever  experienced 
within  the  historical  period — a  veritable  glacial  age  of 
the  spirit.  At  this  time  men  were  too  full  of  admiration 
and  reverence  for  the  newly  recovered  treasures  of  antiquity 
to  look  forward  to  the  future.  In  the  seventeenth  century 
a  doctrine  of  progress  was  already  in  the  air,  and  a  long 
literary  battle  was  waged  between  the  Ancients  and  the 
Moderns.  But  it  was  only  in  the  eighteenth  century  that 
Western  Europe  began  to  dream  of  an  approaching  mil- 
lennium without  miracle,  to  be  gradually  ushered  in  under 
the  auspices  of  a  faculty  which  was  called  Reason.  Unlike 
some  of  their  successors,  these  optimists  believed  that 
perfection  was  to  be  attained  by  the  self-determination  of 
the  human  will ;  they  were  not  fatalists.  In  France,  the 
chief  home  of  this  heady  doctrine,  the  psychical  tempera- 
ture soon  began  to  rise  under  its  influence,  till  it  culminated 
in  the  delirium  of  the  Terror.  The  Goddess  of  Reason 
hardly  survived  Robespierre  and  his  guillotine  ;  but  the 
belief  in  progress,  which  might  otherwise  have  subsided 

n.  M 


162  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

when  the  French  resumed  their  traditional  pursuits — 
rem  militarem  et  argute  loqui — was  reinforced  by  the 
industrial  revolution,  which  was  to  run  a  very  different 
course  from  that  indicated  by  the  theatrical  disturbances 
at  Paris  between  1789  and  1794,  the  importance  of  which 
has  perhaps  been  exaggerated.  In  England  above  all, 
the  home  of  the  new  industry,  progress  was  regarded 
(in  the  words  which  Mr.  Mallock  puts  into  the  mouth  of  a 
nineteenth-century  scientist)  as  that  kind  of  improvement 
which  can  be  measured  by  statistics.  This  was  quite 
seriously  the  view  of  the  last  century  generally,  and  there 
has  never  been,  nor  will  there  ever  be  again,  such  an  op- 
portunity for  gloating  over  this  kind  of  improvement. 
The  mechanical  inventions  of  Watt,  Arkwright,  Crompton, 
Stephenson,  and  others  led  to  an  unparalleled  increase  of 
population.  Exports  and  imports  also  progressed,  in  a 
favourite  phrase  of  the  time,  by  leaps  and  bounds.  Those 
who,  like  Malthus,  sounded  a  note  of  warning,  showing 
that  population  increases,  unlike  the  supply  of  food,  by 
geometrical  progression,  were  answered  that  compound 
interest  follows  the  same  admirable  law.  It  was  obvious 
to  many  of  our  grandparents  that  a  nation  which  travels 
sixty  miles  an  hour  must  be  five  times  as  civilised  as  one 
which  travels  only  twelve,  and  that,  as  Glanvill  had  already 
declared  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II,  we  owe  more  gratitude 
to  the  inventor  of  the  mariner's  compass '  than  to  a  thousand 
Alexanders  and  Caesars,  or  to  ten  times  the  number  of 
Aristotles.'  The  historians  of  the  time  could  not  contain 
their  glee  in  recording  these  triumphs.  Only  the  language 
of  religion  seemed  appropriate  in  contemplating  so  mag- 
nificent a  spectacle.  If  they  had  read  Herder,  they  would 
have  quoted  with  approval  his  prediction  that  '  the  flower 
of  humanity,  captive  still  in  its  germ,  will  blossom  out  one 
day  into  the  true  form  of  man  like  unto  God,  in  a  state  of 
which  no  man  on  earth  can  imagine  the  greatness  and  the 
majesty.'  Determinism  was  much  in  vogue  by  this  time  ; 
but  why  should  determinism  be  a  depressing  creed  ?  The 
law  which  we  cannot  escape  is  the  blessed  law  of  progress — 
'  that  kind  of  improvement  that  can  be  measured  by 
statistics.'  We  had  only  to  thank  our  stars  for  placing  us 


THE  IDEA  OF  PROGRESS  163 

in  such  an  environment,  and  to  carry  out  energetically 
the  course  of  development  which  Nature  has  prescribed 
for  us,  and  to  resist  which  would  be  at  once  impious  and 
futile. 

Thus  the  superstition  of  progress  was  firmly  established. 
To  become  a  popular  religion,  it  is  only  necessary  for  a 
superstition  to  enslave  a  philosophy.  The  superstition 
of  progress  had  the  singular  good  fortune  to  enslave  at 
least  three  philosophies — those  of  Hegel,  of  Comte,  and  of 
Darwin.  The  strange  thing  is  that  none  of  these  philo- 
sophies is  really  favourable  to  the  belief  which  it  was 
supposed  to  support.  Leaving  for  the  present  the  German 
and  the  French  thinkers,  we  observe  with  astonishment 
that  many  leading  men  in  Queen  Victoria's  reign  found  it 
possible  to  use  the  great  biological  discovery  of  Darwin 
to  tyrannise  over  the  minds  of  their  contemporaries,  to 
give  their  blessing  to  the  economic  and  social  movements 
of  their  time,  and  to  unite  determinism  with  teleology 
in  the  highly  edifying  manner  to  which  I  have  already 
referred.  Scientific  optimism  was  no  doubt  rampant  before 
Darwin.  For  example,  Herschel  says  :  '  Man's  progress 
towards  a  higher  state  need  never  fear  a  check,  but  must 
continue  till  the  very  last  existence  of  history.'  But  Herbert 
Spencer  asserts  the  perfectibility  of  man  with  an  assurance 
which  makes  us  gasp.  '  Progress  is  not  an  accident  but 
a  necessity.  What  we  call  evil  and  immorality  must 
disappear.  It  is  certain  that  man  must  become  perfect/ 
'  The  ultimate  development  of  the  ideal  man  is  certain- 
as  certain  as  any  conclusion  in  which  we  place  the  most 
implicit  faith  ;  for  instance,  that  all  men  will  die/  '  Al- 
ways towards  perfection  is  the  mighty  movement — towards 
a  complete  development  and  a  more  unmixed  good/ 

It  has  been  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Bradley  that  these 
apocalyptic  prophecies  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
Darwinism.  If  we  take  the  so-called  doctrine  of  evolution 
in  Nature  as  a  metaphysics  of  existence,  which  Darwin 
never  intended  it  to  be,  '  there  is  in  the  world  nothing  like 
value,  or  good,  or  evil.  Anything  implying  evolution,  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  development  or  progress,  is  wholly 
rejected/  The  survival  of  the  fittest  does  not  mean  that 


164  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

the  most  virtuous,  or  the  most  useful,  or  the  most  beautiful, 
or  even  the  most  complex  survive  ;  there  is  no  moral  or 
aesthetic  judgment  pronounced  on  the  process  or  any  part 
of  it. 

Darwinism  [Mr.  Bradley  goes  on  to  say]  often  recommends 
itself  because  it  is  confused  with  a  doctrine  of  evolution  which 
is  radically  different.  Humanity  is  taken  in  that  doctrine  as 
a  real  being,  or  even  as  the  one  real  being ;  and  humanity  (it 
is  said)  advances  continuously.  Its  history  is  development  and 
progress  towards  a  goal,  because  the  type  and  character  in 
which  its  reality  consists  is  gradually  brought  more  and  more 
into  fact.  That  which  is  strongest  on  the  whole  must  therefore 
be  good,  and  the  ideas  which  come  to  prevail  must  therefore  be 
true.  This  doctrine,  though  I  certainly  cannot  accept  it,  for 
good  or  evil  more  or  less  dominates  or  sways  our  minds  to  an  ex- 
tent of  which  most  of  us  perhaps  are  dangerously  unaware.  Any 
such  view  of  course  conflicts  radically  with  Darwinism,  which 
only  teaches  that  the  true  idea  is  the  idea  which  prevails,  and 
this  leaves  us  in  the  end  with  no  criterion  at  all. 

It  may  further  be  suggested  that  Spencer's  optimism 
depends  on  the  transmissibility  of  acquired  characters  ; 
but  this  is  too  dangerous  a  subject  for  a  layman  in  science 
to  discuss. 

Although  the  main  facts  of  cosmic  evolution,  and  the 
main  course  of  human  history  from  Pithecanthropus 
downwards,  are  well  known  to  all  my  hearers,  and  to  some 
of  them  much  better  than  to  myself,  it  may  be  worth  while 
to  recall  to  you,  in  bald  and  colourless  language,  what 
science  really  tells  us  about  the  nature  and  destiny  of  our 
species.  It  is  so  different  from  the  gay  colours  of  the 
rhapsodists  whom  I  have  just  quoted,  that  we  must  be 
amazed  that  such  doctrines  should  ever  have  passed  for 
scientific.  Astronomy  gives  us  a  picture  of  a  wilderness 
of  space,  probably  boundless,  sparsely  sown  with  aggrega- 
tions of  elemental  particles  in  all  stages  of  heat  and  cold. 
These  heavenly  bodies  are  in  some  cases  growing  hotter, 
in  other  cases  growing  colder  ;  but  the  fate  of  every  globe 
must  be,  sooner  or  later,  to  become  cold  and  dead,  like  the 
moon.  Our  sun,  from  which  we  derive  the  warmth  which 
makes  our  life  possible,  is,  I  believe,  an  elderly  star,  which 


THE  IDEA  OF  PKOGRESS  166 

has  long  outlived  the  turbulent  heats  of  youth,  and  is  on 
its  way  to  join  the  most  senile  class  of  luminiferous  bodies, 
in  which  the  star  19  Piscium  is  placed.  When  a  star  has  once 
become  cold,  it  must  apparently  remain  dead  until  some 
chance  collision  sets  the  whole  cycle  going  again.  From 
time  to  time  a  great  conflagration  in  the  heavens,  which 
occurred  perhaps  in  the  seventeenth  century,  becomes 
visible  from  this  earth ;  and  we  may  imagine,  if  we  will,  that 
two  great  solar  systems  have  been  reduced  in  a  moment 
to  incandescent  gas.  But  space  is  probably  so  empty 
that  the  most  pugnacious  of  astral  knights-errant  might 
wander  for  billions  of  years  without  meeting  an  opponent 
worthy  of  its  bulk.  If  time  as  well  as  space  is  infinite, 
worlds  must  be  born  and  die  innumerable  times,  however 
few  and  far  between  their  periods  of  activity  may  be. 
Of  progress,  in  such  a  system  taken  as  a  whole,  there  cannot 
be  a  trace.  Nor  can  there  be  any  doubt  about  the  fate 
of  our  own  planet.  Man  and  all  his  achievements  will  one 
day  be  obliterated  like  a  child's  sand-castle  when  the  next 
tide  comes  in.  Lucretius,  who  gave  us  the  word  progress, 
has  told  us  our  ultimate  fate  in  sonorous  lines  : 

Quorum  naturam  triplicem,  tria  corpora,  Memmi, 
tres  species  tarn  dissimiles,  tria  talia  texta, 
una  dies  dabit  exitio,  multosque  per  annos 
sustentata  ruet  moles  et  machina  mundi. 

The  racial  life  of  the  species  to  which  we  happen  to 
belong  is  a  brief  episode  even  in  the  brief  life  of  the  planet. 
And  what  we  call  civilisation  or  culture,  though  much  older 
than  we  used  to  suppose,  is  a  brief  episode  in  the  life  of  our 
race.  For  tens  of  thousands  of  years  the  changes  in  our 
habits  must  have  been  very  slight,  and  chiefly  those  which 
were  forced  upon  our  rude  ancestors  by  changes  of  climate. 
Then  in  certain  districts  man  began,  as  Samuel  Butler 
says,  to  wish  to  live  beyond  his  income.  This  was  the 
beginning  of  the  vast  series  of  inventions  which  have  made 
our  life  so  complex.  And,  we  used  to  be  told,  the  '  law  of 
all  progress  is  the  same,  the  evolution  of  the  simple  into 
the  complex  by  successive  differentiations.'  This  is  the 
gospel  according  to  Herbert  Spencer.  As  a  universal  law 


166  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

of  nature,  it  is  ludicrously  untrue.  Some  species  have 
survived  by  becoming  more  complex,  others,  like  the  whole 
tribe  of  parasites,  by  becoming  more  simple.  On  the  whole, 
perhaps  the  parasites  have  had  the  best  of  it.  The  pro- 
gressive species  have  in  many  cases  flourished  for  a  while 
and  then  paid  the  supreme  penalty.  The  living  dread- 
noughts of  the  Saurian  age  have  left  us  their  bones,  but  no 
progeny.  But  the  microbes,  one  of  which  had  the  honour 
of  killing  Alexander  the  Great  at  the  age  of  thirty-two,  and 
so  changing  the  whole  course  of  history,  survive  and  flourish. 
The  microbe  illustrates  the  wisdom  of  the  maxim,  Aa$e 
/Juoo-a.9.  It  took  thousands  of  years  to  find  him  out.  Our 
own  species,  being  rather  poorly  provided  by  nature  for 
offence  and  defence,  had  to  live  by  its  wits,  and  so  came  to 
the  top.  It  developed  many  new  needs,  and  set  itself 
many  insoluble  problems.  Physiologists  like  Metchnikoff 
have  shown  how  very  ill-adapted  our  bodies  are  to  the  tasks 
which  we  impose  upon  them  ;  and  in  spite  of  the  Spencerian 
identification  of  complexity  with  progress,  our  surgeons 
try  to  simplify  our  structure  by  forcibly  removing  various 
organs  which  they  assure  us  that  we  do  not  need.  If  we 
turn  to  history  for  a  confirmation  of  the  Spencerian  doctrine, 
we  find,  on  the  contrary,  that  civilisation  is  a  disease  which 
is  almost  invariably  fatal,  unless  its  course  is  checked  in 
time.  The  Hindus  and  Chinese,  after  advancing  to  a 
certain  point,  were  content  to  mark  time  ;  and  they  survive. 
But  the  Greeks  and  Romans  are  gone  ;  and  aristocracies 
everywhere  die  out.  Do  we  not  see  to-day  the  complex 
organisation  of  the  ecclesiastic  and  college  don  succumbing 
before  the  simple  squeezing  and  sucking  apparatus  of  the 
profiteer  and  trade-unionist  ?  If  so-called  civilised  nations 
show  any  protracted  vitality,  it  is  because  they  are  only 
civilised  at  the  top.  Ancient  civilisations  were  destroyed 
by  imported  barbarians  ;  we  breed  our  own. 

It  is  also  an  unproved  assumption  that  the  domination 
of  the  planet  by  our  own  species  is  a  desirable  thing,  which 
must  give  satisfaction  to  its  Creator.  We  have  devastated 
the  loveliness  of  the  world  ;  we  have  exterminated  several 
species  more  beautiful  and  less  vicious  than  ourselves  ;  we 
have  enslaved  the  rest  of  the  animal  creation,  and  have 


167 

treated  our  distant  cousins  in  fur  and  feathers  so  badly 
that  beyond  doubt,  if  they  were  able  to  formulate  a  religion, 
they  would  depict  the  Devil  in  human  form.  If  it  is  progress 
to  turn  the  fields  and  woods  of  Essex  into  East  and  West 
Ham,  we  may  be  thankful  that  progress  is  a  sporadic  and 
transient  phenomenon  in  history.  It  is  a  pity  that  our 
biologists,  instead  of  singing  paeans  to  Progress  and  thereby 
stultifying  their  own  researches,  have  not  preached  us 
sermons  on  the  sin  of  racial  self-idolatry,  a  topic  which 
really  does  arise  out  of  their  studies.  L'anthropolatrie, 
voild  I'ennemi,  is  the  real  ethical  motto  of  biological  science, 
and  a  valuable  contribution  to  morals. 

It  was  impossible  that  such  shallow  optimism  as  that 
of  Herbert  Spencer  should  not  arouse  protests  from  other 
scientific  thinkers.  Hartmann  had  already  shown  how  a 
system  of  pessimism,  resembling  that  of  Schopenhauer, 
may  be  built  upon  the  foundation  of  evolutionary  science. 
And  in  this  place  we  are  not  likely  to  forget  the  second 
Romanes  Lecture,  when  Professor  Huxley  astonished  his 
friends  and  opponents  alike  by  throwing  down  the  gauntlet 
in  the  face  of  Nature,  and  bidding  mankind  to  find  salva- 
tion by  accepting  for  itself  the  position  which  the  early 
Christian  writer  Hippolytus  gives  as  a  definition  of  the 
Devil — '  he  who  resists  the  cosmic  process  '  (6  diTiTarrwv 
TOIS  Koo-fjuKOis).  The  revolt  was  not  in  reality  so  sudden 
as  some  of  Huxley's  hearers  supposed.  He  had  already 
realised  that  '  so  far  from  gradual  progress  forming  any 
necessary  part  of  the  Darwinian  creed,  it  appears  to  us 
that  it  is  perfectly  consistent  with  indefinite  persistence  in 
one  state,  or  with  a  gradual  retrogression.  Suppose,  e.g., 
a  return  of  the  glacial  period  or  a  spread  of  polar  climatical 
conditions  over  the  whole  globe/  The  alliance  between 
determinism  and  optimism  was  thus  dissolved  ;  and  as  time 
went  on,  Huxley  began  to  see  in  the  cosmic  process  some- 
thing like  a  power  of  evil.  The  natural  process,  he  told  us 
in  this  place,  has  no  tendency  to  bring  about  the  good  of 
mankind.  Cosmic  nature  is  no  school  of  virtue,  but  the 
head-quarters  of  the  enemy  of  ethical  nature.  Nature  is 
the  realm  of  tiger-rights  ;  it  has  no  morals  and  no  ought- 
to-be  ;  its  only  rights  are  brutal  powers.  Morality  exists 


168  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

only  in  the  '  artificial '  moral  world  :  man  is  a  glorious  rebel, 
a  Prometheus  defying  Zeus.  This  strange  rebound  into 
Manicheism  sounded  like  a  blasphemy  against  all  the  gods 
whom  the  lecturer  was  believed  to  worship,  and  half- 
scandalised  even  the  clerics  in  his  audience.  It  was  bound 
to  raise  the  question  whether  this  titanic  revolt  against 
the  cosmic  process  has  any  chance  of  success.  One  recent 
thinker,  who  accepts  Huxley's  view  that  the  nature  of 
things  is  cruel  and  immoral,  is  willing  to  face  the  probability 
that  we  cannot  resist  it  with  any  prospect  of  victory.  Mr. 
Bertrand  Russell,  in  his  arresting  essay,  '  A  Free  Man's 
Worship/  shows  us  Prometheus  again,  but  Prometheus 
chained  to  the  rock  and  still  hurling  defiance  against  God. 
He  proclaims  the  moral  bankruptcy  of  naturahsm,  which 
he  yet  holds  to  be  forced  upon  us. 

That  man  is  the  product  of  causes  which  had  no  prevision 
of  the  end  they  were  achieving ;  that  his  origin,  his  growth, 
his  hopes  and  fears,  his  loves  and  his  beliefs,  are  but  the  out- 
come of  accidental  collocations  of  atoms ;  that  no  fire,  no  hero- 
ism, no  intensity  of  thought  and  feeling,  can  preserve  an  indi- 
vidual beyond  the  grave ;  that  all  the  labours  of  the  ages,  all 
the  devotion,  all  the  inspiration,  all  the  noonday  brightness  of 
human  genius,  are  destined  to  extinction  in  the  vast  death  of 
the  solar  system,  and  that  the  whole  temple  of  man's  achievemont 
must  inevitably  be  buried  beneath  the  debris  of  a  universe  in 
ruins — all  these  things,  if  not  quite  beyond  dispute,  are  yet  so 
nearly  certain,  that  no  philosophy  which  rejects  them  can  hope 
to  stand.  Only  within  the  scaffolding  of  these  truths,  only  on 
the  firm  foundation  of  unyielding  despair,  can  the  soul's  habi- 
tation henceforth  be  safely  built. 

Man  belongs  to  '  an  alien  and  inhuman  world/  alone  amid 
'  hostile  forces.'  What  is  man  to  do  ?  The  God  who 
exists  is  evil ;  the  God  whom  we  can  worship  is  the  creation 
of  our  own  conscience,  and  has  no  existence  outside  it. 
The  '  free  man  '  will  worship  the  latter  ;  and,  like  John 
Stuart  Mill,  '  to  hell  he  will  go.' 

If  I  wished  to  criticise  this  defiant  pronouncement, 
which  is  not  without  a  touch  of  bravado,  I  should  say  that 
so  complete  a  separation  of  the  real  from  the  ideal  is  im- 
possible, and  that  the  choice  which  the  writer  offers  us, 


THE  IDEA  OF  PROGRESS  169 

of  worshipping  a  Devil  who  exists  or  a  God  who  does  not, 
is  no  real  choice,  since  we  cannot  worship  either.  But  my 
object  in  quoting  from  this  essay  is  to  show  how  completely 
naturalism  has  severed  its  alliance  with  optimism  and  belief 
in  progress.  Professor  Huxley  and  Mr.  Russell  have  sung 
their  palinode  and  smashed  the  old  gods  of  their  creed. 
No  more  proof  is  needed,  I  think,  that  the  alleged  law  of 
progress  has  no  scientific  basis  whatever. 

But  the  superstition  has  also  invaded  and  vitiated  our 
history,  our  political  science,  our  philosophy,  and  our 
religion. 

The  historian  is  a  natural  snob  ;  he  sides  with  the 
gods  against  Cato,  and  approves  the  winning  side.  He 
lectures  the  vanquished  for  their  wilfulness  and  want  of 
foresight,  sometimes  rather  prematurely,  as  when  Seeley, 
looking  about  for  an  example  of  perverse  refusal  to  recognise 
facts,  exclaims  '  Sedet,  aeternumque  sedebit  unhappy 
Poland  !  '  The  nineteenth-century  historian  was  so  loath 
to  admit  retrogression  that  he  liked  to  fancy  the  river  of 
progress  flowing  underground  all  through  the  Dark  Ages, 
and  endowed  the  German  barbarians  who  overthrew 
Mediterranean  civilisation  with  all  the  manly  virtues.  If 
a  nation,  or  a  religion,  or  a  school  of  art  dies,  the  historian 
explains  why  it  was  not  worthy  to  live. 

In  political  science  the  corruption  of  the  scientific 
spirit  by  the  superstition  of  progress  has  been  flagrant. 
It  enables  the  disputant  to  overbear  questions  of  right 
and  wrong  by  confident  prediction,  a  method  which  has 
the  double  advantage  of  being  peculiarly  irritating  and 
incapable  of  refutation.  On  the  theory  of  progress,  what 
is  '  coming  '  must  be  right.  Forms  of  government  and 
modes  of  thought  which  for  the  time  being  are  not 
in  favour  are  assumed  to  have  been  permanently  left 
behind.  A  student  of  history  who  believed  in  cyclical 
changes  and  long  swings  of  the  pendulum  would  take  a 
very  different  and  probably  much  sounder  view  of  con- 
temporary affairs.  The  votaries  of  progress  mistake  the 
flowing  tide  for  the  river  of  eternity,  and  when  the  tide 
turns  they  are  likely  to  be  left  stranded  like  the  corks  and 
scraps  of  seaweed  which  mark  the  high-water  line.  This 


170  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

has  already  happened,  though  few  realise  it.  The  praises 
of  Liberty  are  mainly  left  to  Conservatives,  who  couple  it 
with  Property  as  something  to  be  defended,  and  to  con- 
scientious objectors,  who  dissociate  it  from  their  country, 
which  is  not  to  be  defended.  Democracy — the  magic 
ballot-box — has  few  worshippers  any  longer  except  in 
America,  where  men  will  still  shout  for  about  two  hours — 
and  indeed  much  longer — that  she  is  '  great/  But  our 
pundits  will  be  slow  to  surrender  the  useful  words  '  pro- 
gressive '  and  '  reactionary/  The  classification  is,  however, 
a  little  awkward.  If  a  reactionary  is  anyone  who  will  not 
float  with  the  stream,  and  a  progressive  anyone  who  has 
the  flowing  tide  with  him,  we  must  classify  the  Christian 
Fathers  and  the  French  Encyclopaedists  as  belonging  to  the 
same  type,  the  progressive  ;  while  the  Koman  Stoics  under 
the  Empire  and  the  Russian  bureaucrats  under  Nicholas  II 
will  be  placed  together  under  the  opposite  title,  as  reaction- 
aries. Or  is  the  progressive  not  the  supporter  of  the 
winning  cause  for  the  time  being,  but  the  man  who  thinks, 
with  a  distinguished  Head  of  a  College  who,  as  I  remember, 
affirmed  his  principles  in  Convocation,  that  '  any  leap  in 
the  dark  is  better  than  standing  still '  ;  and  is  the  reaction- 
ary the  man  whose  constitutional  timidity  would  deter  him 
from  performing  this  act  of  faith  when  caught  by  a  mist  on 
the  Matterhorn  ?  Machiavelli  recognises  fixed  types  of 
human  character,  such  as  the  cautious  Fabius  and  the 
impetuous  Julius  II,  and  observes  that  these  qualities  lead 
sometimes  to  success  and  sometimes  to  failure.  If  a 
reactionary  only  means  an  adherent  of  political  opinions 
which  we  happen  to  dislike,  there  is  no  reason  why  a 
bureaucrat  should  not  call  a  republican  a  reactionary, 
as  Maecenas  may  have  applied  the  name  to  Brutus 
and  Cassius.  Such  examples  of  evolution  as  that  which 
turned  the  Roman  Republic  into  a  principate  and  then 
into  an  empire  of  the  Asiatic  type,  are  inconvenient 
for  those  .who  say  'It  is  coming/  and  think  that  they 
have  vindicated  the  superiority  of  their  own  theories  of 
government. 

We  have  next  to  consider  the  influence  of  the  super- 
stition of  progress  on  the  philosophy  of  the  last  century. 


THE  IDEA  OF  PKOGRESS  171 

To  attempt  such  a  task  in  this  place  is  a  little  rash,  and  to 
prove  the  charge  in  a  few  minutes  would  be  impossible  even 
for  one  much  better  equipped  than  I  am.  But  something 
must  be  said.  Hegel  and  Comte  are  often  held  to  have 
been  the  chief  advocates  of  the  doctrine  of  progress  among 
philosophers.  Both  of  them  give  definitions  of  the  word — 
a  very  necessary  thing  to  do,  and  I  have  not  yet  attempted 
to  do  it.  Hegel  defines  progress  as  spiritual  freedom ; 
Comte  as  true  or  positive  social  philosophy.  The  definitions 
are  peculiar  ;  and  neither  theory  can  be  made  to  fit  past 
history,  though  that  of  Comte,  at  any  rate,  falls  to  the 
ground  if  it  does  not  fit  past  history.  Hegel  is  perhaps 
more  independent  of  facts ;  his  predecessor  Fichte  pro- 
fesses to  be  entirely  indifferent  to  them.  '  The  philosopher,' 
he  says, '  follows  the  a  priori  thread  of  the  world-plan  which 
is  clear  to  him  without  any  history  ;  and  if  he  makes  use 
of  history,  it  is  not  to  prove  anything,  since  his  theses  are 
already  proved  independently  of  all  history.'  Certainly, 
Hegel's  dialectical  process  cannot  easily  be  recognised  in 
the  course  of  European  events  ;  and,  what  is  more  fatal  to 
the  believers  in  a  law  of  progress  who  appeal  to  him,  he 
does  not  seem  to  have  contemplated  any  further  marked 
improvements  upon  the  political  system  of  Prussia  in  his 
own  time,  which  he  admired  so  much  that  his  critics  have 
accused  him  of  teaching  that  the  Absolute  first  attained 
full  self-consciousness  at  Berlin  in  the  nineteenth  century. 
He  undoubtedly  believed  that  there  has  been  progress 
in  the  past ;  but  he  does  not,  it  appears,  look  forward  to 
further  changes  ;  as  a  politician,  at  any  rate,  he  gives  us 
something  like  a  closed  system.  Comte  can  only  bring 
his  famous  '  three  stages  '  into  history  by  arguing  that  the 
Catholic  monotheism  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  an  advance 
upon  Pagan  antiquity.  A  Catholic  might  defend  such  a 
thesis  with  success  ;  but  for  Comte  the  chief  advantage 
seems  to  be  that  the  change  left  the  Olympians  with  only 
one  neck,  for  Positive  Philosophy  to  cut  off.  But  Comte 
himself  is  what  his  system  requires  us  to  call  a  reactionary  ; 
he  is  back  in  the  '  theological  stage  '  ;  he  would  like  a 
theocracy,  if  he  could  have  one  without  a  God.  The  State 
is  to  be  subordinate  to  the  Positive  Church,  and  he  will 


172  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

allow  '  no  unlimited  freedom  of  thought.'  The  connexion 
of  this  philosophy  with  the  doctrine  of  progress  seems 
very  slender.  It  is  not  so  easy  to  answer  the  question  in 
the  case  of  Hegel,  because  his  contentment  with  the 
Prussian  government  may  be  set  down  to  idiosyncrasy  or 
to  prudence  ;  but  it  is  significant  that  some  of  his  ablest 
disciples  have  discarded  the  belief.  To  say  that  '  the 
world  is  as  it  ought  to  be  '  does  not  imply  that  it  goes  on 
getting  better,  though  some  would  think  it  was  not  good 
if  it  was  not  getting  better.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  a 
great  thinker  really  supposed  that  the  universe  as  a  whole 
is  progressing,  a  notion  which  Mr.  Bradley  has  stigmatised 
as  '  nonsense,  unmeaning  or  blasphemous.'  Mr.  Bradley 
may  perhaps  be  interpreting  Hegel  rightly  when  he  says 
that  for  a  philosopher  '  progress  can  never  have  any 
temporal  sense,'  and  explains  that  a  perfect  philosopher 
would  see  the  whole  world  of  appearance  as  a  '  progress,' 
by  which  he  seems  to  mean  only  a  rearrangement  in  terms 
of  ascending  and  descending  value  and  reality.  But  it 
might  be  objected  that  to  use  '  progress  '  in  this  sense  is  to 
lay  a  trap  for  the  unwary.  Mathematicians  undoubtedly 
talk  of  progress,  or  rather  of  progression,  without  any 
implication  of  temporal  sequence  ;  but  outside  this  science 
to  speak  of  '  progress  without  any  temporal  sense  '  is  to  use 
a  phrase  which  some  would  call  self-contradictory.  Be 
that  as  it  may,  popularised  Hegelianism  has  laid  hold  of 
the  idea  of  a  self-improving  universe,  of  perpetual  and 
universal  progress,  in  a  strictly  temporal  sense.  The 
notion  of  an  evolving  and  progressing  cosmos,  with  a  Creator 
who  is  either  improving  himself  (though  we  do  not  put  it 
quite  so  crudely)  or  who  is  gradually  coming  into  his  own, 
has  taken  strong  hold  of  the  popular  imagination.  The 
latter  notion  leads  straight  to  ethical  dualism  of  the 
Manichean  type.  The  theory  of  a  single  purpose  in  the 
universe  seems  to  me  untenable.  Such  a  purpose,  being 
infinite,  could  never  have  been  conceived,  and  if  con- 
ceived, could  never  be  accomplished.  The  theory  con- 
demns both  God  and  man  to  the  doom  of  Tantalus.  Mr. 
Bradley  is  quite  right  in  finding  this  belief  incompatible 
with  Christianity. 


THE  IDEA  OF  PROGRESS  173 

It  would  not  be  possible,  without  transgressing  the 
limits  set  for  lecturers  on  this  foundation,  to  show  how 
the  belief  in  a  law  of  progress  has  prejudicially  affected  the 
religious  beliefs  of  our  time.  I  need  only  recall  to  you  the 
discussions  whether  the  perfect  man  could  have  lived  in 
the  first,  and  not  in  the  nineteenth  or  twentieth  century — 
although  one  would  have  thought  that  the  ancient  Greeks, 
to  take  one  nation  only,  have  produced  many  examples 
of  hitherto  unsurpassed  genius ;  the  secularisation  of 
religion  by  throwing  its  ideals  into  the  near  future — a  new 
apocalyptism  which  is  doing  mischief  enough  in  politics 
without  the  help  of  the  clergy  ;  and  the  unauthorised 
belief  in  future  probation,  which  rests  on  the  queer  assump- 
tion that,  if  a  man  is  given  time  enough,  he  must  necessarily 
become  perfect.  In  fact,  the  superstition  which  is  the 
subject  of  this  lecture  has  distorted  Christianity  almost 
beyond  recognition.  Only  one  great  Church,  old  in  worldly 
wisdom,  knows  that  human  nature  does  not  change,  and 
acts  on  the  knowledge.  Accordingly,  the  papal  syllabus 
of  1864  declares :  '  Si  quis  dixerit :  Eomanus  pontifex 
potest  ac  debet  cum  progressu,  cum  liberalismo,  et  cum 
recenti  civilitate  sese  reconciliare  et  componere,  anathema 
sit.' 

Our  optimists  have  not  made  it  clear  to  themselves  or 
others  what  they  mean  by  progress,  and  we  may  suspect 
that  the  vagueness  of  the  idea  is  one  of  its  attractions. 
There  has  been  no  physical  progress  in  our  species  for  many 
thousands  of  years.  The  Cro-Magnon  race,  which  lived 
perhaps  twenty  thousand  years  ago,  was  at  least  equal  to 
any  modern  people  in  size  and  strength  ;  the  ancient  Greeks 
were,  I  suppose,  handsomer  and  better  formed  than  we 
are  ;  and  some  unprogressive  races,  such  as  the  Zulus, 
Samoans,  and  Tahitians,  are  envied  by  Europeans  for  either 
strength  or  beauty.  Although  it  seems  not  to  be  true  that 
the  sight  and  hearing  of  civilised  peoples  are  inferior  to 
those  of  savages,  we  have  certainly  lost  our  natural  weapons, 
which  from  one  point  of  view  is  a  mark  of  degeneracy. 
Mentally,  we  are  now  told  that  the  men  of  the  Old  Stone 
Age,  ugiy  as  most  of  them  must  have  been,  had  as  large 
brains  as  ours  ;  and  he  would  be  a  bold  man  who  should 


174  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

claim  that  we  are  intellectually  equal  to  the  Athenians  or 
superior  to  the  Romans.  The  question  of  moral  improve- 
ment is  much  more  difficult.  Until  the  Great  War  few 
would  have  disputed  that  civilised  man  had  become  much 
more  humane,  much  more  sensitive  to  the  sufferings  of 
others,  and  so  more  just,  more  self-controlled,  and  less 
brutal  in  his  pleasures  and  in  his  resentments.  The 
habitual  honesty  of  the  Western  European  might  also 
have  been  contrasted  with  the  rascality  of  inferior  races  in 
the  past  and  present.  It  was  often  forgotten  that,  if 
progress  means  the  improvement  of  human  nature  itself, 
the  question  to  be  asked  is  whether  the  modern  civilised 
man  behaves  better  in  the  same  circumstances  than  his 
ancestor  would  have  done.  Absence  of  temptation  may 
produce  an  appearance  of  improvement ;  but  this  is 
hardly  what  we  mean  by  progress,  and  there  is  an  old 
saying  that  the  Devil  has  a  clever  trick  of  pretending  to 
be  dead.  It  seems  to  me  very  doubtful  whether  when 
we  are  exposed  to  the  same  temptations  we  are  more 
humane  or  more  sympathetic  or  juster  or  less  brutal  than 
the  ancients.  Even  before  this  war,  the  examples  of  the 
Congo  and  Putumayo,  and  American  lynchings,  proved 
that  contact  with  barbarians  reduces  many  white  men  to 
the  moral  condition  of  savages  ;  and  the  outrages  com- 
mitted on  the  Chinese  after  the  Boxer  rebellion  showed 
that  even  a  civilised  nation  cannot  rely  on  being  decently 
treated  by  Europeans  if  its  civilisation  is  different  from 
their  own.  During  the  Great  War,  even  if  some  atrocities 
were  magnified  with  the  amiable  object  of  rousing  a  good- 
natured  people  to  violent  hatred,  it  was  the  well-considered 
opinion  of  Lord  Bryce's  commission  that  no  such  cruelties 
had  been  committed  for  three  hundred  years  as  those 
which  the  Germans  practised  in  Belgium  and  France. 
It  was  startling  to  observe  how  easily  the  blood-lust  was 
excited  in  young  men  straight  from  the  fields,  the  factory, 
and  the  counter,  many  of  whom  had  never  before  killed 
anything  larger  than  a  wasp,  and  that  in  self-defence.  As 
for  the  Turks,  we  must  go  back  to  Genghis  Khan  to  find 
any  parallel  to  their  massacres  in  Armenia  ;  and  the  Russian 
terrorists  have  reintroduced  torture  into  Europe,  with  the 


THE  IDEA  OF  PROGRESS  175 

help  of  Chinese  experts  in  the  art.  With  these  examples 
before  our  eyes,  it  is  difficult  to  feel  any  confidence  that 
either  the  lapse  of  time  or  civilisation  has  made  the  bete 
humaine  less  ferocious.  On  biological  grounds  there  is  no 
reason  to  expect  it.  No  selection  in  favour  of  superior 
types  is  now  going  on  ;  on  the  contrary,  civilisation  tends 
now,  as  always,  to  an  Ausroltung  der  Besten — a  weeding-out 
of  the  best ;  and  the  new  practice  of  subsidising  the  un- 
successful by  taxes  extorted  from  the  industrious  is  caco- 
genics  erected  into  a  principle.  The  best  hope  of  stopping 
this  progressive  degeneration  is  in  the  science  of  eugenics. 
But  this  science  is  still  too  tentative  to  be  made  the  basis 
of  legislation,  and  we  are  not  yet  agreed  what  we  should 
breed  for.  The  two  ideals,  that  of  the  perfect  man  and 
that  of  the  perfectly  organised  State,  would  lead  to  very 
different  principles  of  selection.  Do  we  want  a  nation  of 
beautiful  and  moderately  efficient  Greek  gods,  or  do  we 
want  human  mastiffs  for  policemen,  human  greyhounds 
for  postmen,  and  so  on  ?  However,  the  opposition  which 
eugenics  has  now  to  face  is  based  on  less  respectable  grounds, 
such  as  pure  hedonism  ('  would  the  superman  be  any 
happier  ? ') ;  indifference  to  the  future  welfare  of  the  race 
('  posterity  has  done  nothing  for  me  ;  why  should  I  do 
anything  for  posterity  ?  ') ;  and,  in  politics,  the  reflection 
that  the  unborn  have  no  votes. 

"We  have,  then,  been  driven  to  the  conclusion  that 
neither  science  nor  history  gives  us  any  warrant  for  be- 
lieving that  humanity  has  advanced,  except  by  accumu- 
lating knowledge  and  experience  and  the  instruments  of 
living.  The  value  of  these  accumulations  is  not  beyond 
dispute.  Attacks  upon  civilisation  have  been  frequent, 
from  Crates,  Pherecrates,  Antisthenes,  and  Lucretius  in 
antiquity  to  Rousseau,  Walt  Whitman,  Thoreau,  Ruskin, 
Morris,  and  Edward  Carpenter  in  modern  times.  I  cannot 
myself  agree  with  these  extremists.  I  believe  that  the 
accumulated  experience  of  mankind,  and  his  wonderful 
discoveries,  are  of  great  value.  I  only  point  out  that  they 
do  not  constitute  real  progress  in  human  nature  itself, 
and  that  in  the  absence  of  any  real  progress  these  gains 
are  external,  precarious,  and  liable  to  be  turned  to  our 


176  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

own  destruction,   as   new  discoveries  in  chemistry  may 
easily  be. 

But  it  is  possible  to  approach  the  whole  question  of 
progress  from  another  side,  and  from  this  side  the  results 
will  not  be  quite  the  same,  and  may  be  more  encouraging. 
We  have  said  that  there  can  be  no  progress  in  the  macro- 
cosm, and  no  single  purpose  in  a  universe  which  has  neither 
beginning  nor  end  in  time.  But  there  may  be  an  infinite 
number  of  finite  purposes,  some  much  greater  and  others 
much  smaller  than  the  span  of  an  individual  life  ;  and 
within  each  of  these  some  Divine  thought  may  be  working 
itself  out,  bringing  some  life  or  series  of  lives,  some  nation 
or  race  or  species,  to  that  perfection  which  is  natural  to  it — 
what  the  Greeks  called  its  '  nature.'  The  Greeks  saw  no 
contradiction  between  this  belief  and  the  theory  of  cosmic 
cycles,  and  I  do  not  think  that  there  is  any  contradiction. 
It  may  be  that  there  is  an  immanent  teleology  which  is 
shaping  the  life  of  the  human  race  towards  some  completed 
development  which  has  not  yet  been  reached.  To  advocate 
such  a  theory  seems  like  going  back  from  Darwin  to  Lam- 
arck ;  but  '  vitalism,'  if  it  be  a  heresy,  is  a  very  vigorous 
and  obstinate  one  ;  we  can  hardly  dismiss  it  as  unscientific. 
The  possibility  that  such  a  development  is  going  on  is  not 
disproved  by  the  slowness  of  the  change  within  the  historical 
period.  Progress  in  the  recent  millennia  seems  to  us  to 
have  been  external,  precarious,  and  disappointing.  But  let 
this  last  adjective  give  us  pause.  By  what  standard  do 
we  pronounce  it  disappointing,  and  who  gave  us  this 
standard  ?  This  disappointment  has  been  a  constant 
phenomenon,  with  a  very  few  exceptions.  What  does 
it  mean  ?  Have  those  who  reject  the  law  of  progress 
taken  it  into  account  ?  The  philosophy  of  naturalism 
always  makes  the  mistake  of  leaving  human  nature  out. 
The  climbing  instinct  of  humanity,  and  our  discontent 
with  things  as  they  are,  are  facts  which  have  to  be  accounted 
for,  no  less  than  the  stable  instincts  of  nearly  all  other 
species.  We  all  desire  to  make  progress,  and  our  ambitions 
are  not  limited  to  our  own  lives  or  our  lifetimes.  It  is 
part  of  our  nature  to  aspire  and  hope ;  even  on  biological 
grounds  this  instinct  must  be  assumed  to  serve  some 


THE  IDEA  OF  PEOGRESS  177 

function.  The  first  Christian  poet,  Prudentius,  quite  in 
the  spirit  of  Robert  Browning,  names  Hope  as  the  dis- 
tinguishing characteristic  of  mankind. 

Nonne  hominum  et  pecudum  distantia  separat  una  ? 
quod  bona  quadrupedum  ante  oculos  sita  sunt,  ego  contra 
spero. 

We  must  consider  seriously  what  this  instinct  of  hope 
means  and  implies  in  the  scheme  of  things. 

It  is  of  course  possible  to  dismiss  it  as  a  fraud.  Per- 
haps this  was  the  view  most  commonly  held  in  antiquity. 
Hope  was  regarded  as  a  gift  of  dubious  value,  an  illusion 
which  helps  us  to  endure  life,  and  a  potent  spur  to  action  ; 
but  in  the  last  resort  an  ignis  fatuus.  A  Greek  could  write 
for  his  tombstone  : 

I've  entered  port.     Fortune  and  Hope,  adieu  ! 
Make  game  of  others,  for  I've  done  with  you. 

And  Lord  Brougham  chose  this  epigram  to  adorn  his 
villa  at  Cannes.  So  for  Schopenhauer  hope  is  the  bait  by 
which  Nature  gets  her  hook  in  our  nose,  and  induces  us  to 
serve  her  purposes,  which  are  not  our  own.  This  is  pessi- 
mism, which,  like  optimism,  is  a  mood,  not  a  philosophy. 
Neither  of  them  needs  refutation,  except  for  the  adherent 
of  the  opposite  mood  ;  and  these  will  never  convince  each 
other,  for  the  same  arguments  are  fatal  to  both.  If  our 
desires  are  clearly  contrary  to  the  nature  of  things,  of  which 
we  are  a  part,  it  is  our  wisdom  and  our  duty  to  correct  our 
ambitions,  and,  like  the  Bostonian  Margaret  Fuller,  to 
decide  to  '  accept  the  universe.'  '  Gad  !  she'd  better,'  was 
Carlyle's  comment  on  this  declaration.  The  true  inference 
from  Nature's  law  of  vicarious  sacrifice  is  not  that  life  is  a 
fraud,  but  that  selfishness  is  unnatural.  The  pessimist  can- 
not condemn  the  world  except  by  a  standard  which  he  finds 
somewhere,  if  only  in  his  own  heart ;  in  passing  sentence 
upon  it  he  affirms  an  optimism  which  be  will  not  surrender 
to  any  appearances. 

The  ancients  were  not  pessimists  ;  but  they  distrusted 

Hope.     I  will  not  follow  those  who  say  that  they  succumbed 

to  the  barbarians  because  they  looked  back  instead  of 

forward  ;  I  do  not  think  it  is  true.     If  the  Greeks  and 

n.  M 


178  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

Romans  had  studied  chemistry  and  metallurgy  instead  of 
art,  rhetoric,  and  law,  they  might  have  discovered  gun- 
powder and  poison  gas  and  kept  the  Germans  north  of  the 
Alps.  But  St.  Paul's  deliberate  verdict  on  pagan  society, 
that  it  '  had  no  hope,'  cannot  be  lightly  set  aside.  No 
other  religion,  before  Christianity,  ever  erected  hope  into 
a  moral  virtue.  '  We  are  saved  by  hope,'  was  a  new 
doctrine  when  it  was  pronounced.  The  later  Neoplaton- 
ists  borrowed  St.  Paul's  triad,  Faith.  Hope,  and  Love, 
adding  Truth  as  a  fourth.  Hopefulness  may  have  been 
partly  a  legacy  from  Judaism  ;  but  it  was  much  more  a 
part  of  the  intense  spiritual  vitality  which  was  disseminated 
by  the  new  faith.  In  an  isolated  but  extremely  interesting 
passage  St.  Paul  extends  his  hope  of  '  redemption  into  the 
glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God  '  to  the  '  whole 
creation  '  generally.  In  the  absence  of  any  explanation 
or  parallel  passages  it  is  difficult  to  say  what  vision  of 
cosmic  deliverance  was  in  his  mind.  Students  of  early 
Christian  thought  must  be  struck  by  the  vigour  of  hope 
in  the  minds  of  men,  combined  with  great  fluidity  in  the 
forms  or  moulds  into  which  it  ran.  After  much  fluctua- 
tion, it  tended  to  harden  as  belief  in  a  supramundane 
future,  a  compromise  between  Jewish  and  Platonic  escha- 
tology,  since  the  Jews  set  their  hopes  on  a  terrestrial  future, 
the  Platonists  on  a  supramundane  present.  Christian  philo- 
sophers still  inclined  to  the  Platonic  faith,  while  popular 
belief  retained  the  apocalyptic  Jewish  ideas  under  the  form 
of  Millenarianism.  Religion  has  oscillated  between  these 
two  types  of  belief  ever  since,  and  both  have  suffered 
considerably  by  being  vulgarised.  In  times  of  disorder 
and  decadence,  the  Platonic  ideal  world,  materialised  into 
a  supraterrestrial  physics  and  geography,  has  tended  to 
prevail :  in  times  of  crass  prosperity  and  intellectual  con- 
fidence the  Jewish  dream  of  a  kingdom  of  the  saints  on 
earth  has  been  coarsened  into  promises  of  '  a  good  time 
coming.'  At  the  time  when  we  were  inditing  the  paeans 
to  Progress  which  I  quoted  near  the  beginning  of  my 
lecture,  we  were  evolving  a  Deuteronomic  religion  for 
ourselves^even  more  flattering  than  the  combination  of 
determinism  with  optimism  which  science  was  offering 


THE  IDEA  OF  PROGRESS  179 

at  the  same  period.  We  almost  persuaded  ourselves  that 
the  words  '  the  meek-spirited  shall  possess  the  earth '  were 
a  prophecy  of  the  expansion  of  England. 

It  is  easy  to  criticise  the  forms  which  Hope  has  assumed. 
But  the  Hope  which  has  generated  them  is  a  solid  fact,  and 
we  have  to  recognise  its  indomitable  tenacity  and  power 
of  taking  new  shapes.  The  belief  in  a  law  of  progress, 
which  I  have  criticised  so  unmercifully,  is  one  of  these 
forms  ;  and  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  it  is  nearly  worn  out. 
Disraeli  in  his  detached  way  said  '  The  European  talks  of 
progress  because  by  the  aid  of  a  few  scientific  discoveries 
he  has  established  a  society  which  has  mistaken  comfort 
for  civilisation.'  It  would  not  be  easy  to  sum  up  better 
the  achievements  of  the  nineteenth  century,  which  will  be 
always  remembered  as  the  century  of  accumulation  and 
expansion.  It  was  one  of  the  great  ages  of  the  world  ;  and 
its  greatness  was  bound  up  with  that  very  idea  of  progress 
which,  in  the  crude  forms  which  it  usually  assumed,  we 
have  seen  to  be  an  illusion.  It  was  a  strenuous,  not  a  self- 
indulgent  age.  The  profits  of  industry  were  not  squandered, 
but  turned  into  new  capital,  providing  new  markets  and 
employment  for  more  labour.  The  nation,  as  an  aggregate, 
increased  in  wealth,  numbers,  and  power  every  day  ;  and 
public  opinion  approved  this  increase,  and  the  sacrifices 
which  it  involved.  It  was  a  great  century  ;  there  were 
giants  in  the  earth  in  those  days  ;  I  have  no  patience  with 
the  pygmies  who  gird  at  them.  But,  as  its  greatest  and 
most  representative  poet  said  :  '  God  fulfils  himself  in 
many  ways,  Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the 
world.'  The  mould  in  which  the  Victorian  age  cast  its 
hopes  is  broken.  There  is  no  law  of  progress  ;  and  the 
gains  of  that  age  now  seem  to  some  of  us  to  have  been 
purchased  too  high,  or  even  to  be  themselves  of  doubtful 
value.  In  Clough  s  fine  poem, .beginning  '  Hope  evermore 
and  believe,  0  man,'  a  poem  in  which  the  ethics  of  Puritan- 
ism find  their  perfect  expression,  the  poet  exhorts  us  : 

Go  !  say  not  in  thine  heart,  And  what  then,  were  it 

accomplished, 
Were  the  wild  impulse  allayed,  what  were  the  use  and  the 

good  ? 


180  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

But  this  question,  which  the  blind  Puritan  asceticism 
resolutely  thrust  on  one  side,  has  begun  to  press  for  an 
answer.  It  had  begun  to  press  for  an  answer  before  the 
great  cataclysm,  which  shattered  the  material  symbols  of 
the  cult  which  for  a  century  and  a  half  had  absorbed  the 
chief  energies  of  mankind.  Whether  our  widespread 
discontent  is  mainly  caused,  as  I  sometimes  think,  by  the 
unnatural  conditions  of  life  in  large  towns,  or  by  the  decay 
of  the  ideal  itself,  it  is  not  easy  to  say.  In  any  case,  the 
gods  of  Queen  Victoria's  reign  are  no  longer  worshipped. 
And  I  believe  that  the  dissatisfaction  with  things  as  they 
are  is  caused  not  only  by  the  failure  of  nineteenth-century 
civilisation,  but  partly  also  by  its  success.  We  no  longer 
wish  to  progress  on  those  lines  if  we  could.  Our  apocalyptic 
dream  is  vanishing  into  thin  air.  It  may  be  that  the 
industrial  revolution  which  began  in  the  reign  of  George 
III  has  produced  most  of  its  fruits,  and  has  had  its 
day.  We  may  have  to  look  forward  to  such  a  change  as  is 
imagined  by  Anatole  France  at  the  end  of  his  '  Isle  of  the 
Penguins/  when,  after  an  orgy  of  revolution  and  destruc- 
tion, we  shall  slide  back  into  the  quiet  rural  life  of  the  early 
modern  period.  If  so,  the  authors  of  the  revolution  will 
have  cut  their  own  throats,  for  there  can  be  no  great  manu- 
facturing towns  in  such  a  society.  The  race  will  have 
tried  a  great  experiment,  and  will  have  rejected  it  as 
unsatisfying.  We  shall  have  added  something  to  our 
experience.  Fontenelle  exclaimed,  '  How  many  foolish 
things  we  should  say  now,  if  the  ancients  had  not  said 
them  all  before  us  !  '  Fools  are  not  so  much  afraid  of 
plagiarism  as  this  Frenchman  supposed  ;  but  it  is  true 
that  '  Eventu  rerum  stolidi  didicere  magistro.' 

There  is  much  to  support  the  belief  that  there  is  a 
struggle  for  existence  among  ideas,  and  that  those  tend  to 
prevail  which  correspond  with  the  changing  needs  of 
humanity.  It  does  not  necessarily  follow  that  the  ideas 
which  prevail  are  better  morally,  or  even  truer  to  the  law 
of  Nature,  than  those  which  fail.  Life  is  so  chaotic,  and 
development  so  sporadic  and  one-sided,  that  a  brief  and 
brilliant  success  may  carry  with  it  the  seeds  of  its  own 
early  ruin.  The  great  triumphs  of  humanity  have  not 


THE  IDEA  OF  PROGRESS  181 

come  all  at  once.  Architecture  reached  its  climax  in  an 
age  otherwise  barbarous  ;  Roman  law  was  perfected  in  a 
dismal  age  of  decline  ;  and  the  nineteenth  century,  with  its 
marvels  of  applied  science,  has  produced  the  ugliest  of  all 
civilisations.  There  have  been  notable  flowering  times  of 
the  Spirit  of  Man — Ages  of  Pericles,  Augustan  Ages, 
Renaissances.  The  laws  which  determine  these  efflores- 
cences are  unknown.  They  may  depend  on  undistinguished 
periods  when  force  is  being  stored  up.  So  in  individual 
greatness,  the  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth.  Some  of  our 
greatest  may  have  died  unknown,  '  carent  quia  vate  sacro/ 
Emerson  indeed  tells  us  that  '  One  accent  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  The  careless  world  has  never  lost.'  But  I  should 
like  to  know  how  Emerson  obtained  this  information. 
The  World  has  not  always  been  '  careless  '  about  its  inspired 
prophets  ;  it  has  often,  as  Faust  remarks,  burnt  or  crucified 
them,  before  they  have  delivered  all  their  message.  The 
activities  of  the  Race-Spirit  have  been  quite  unaccountable. 
It  has  stumbled  along  blindly,  falling  into  every  possible 
pitfall. 

The  laws  of  Nature  neither  promise  progress  nor  forbid 
it.  We  could  do  much  to  determine  our  own  future  ;  but 
there  has  been  no  consistency  about  our  aspirations,  and 
we  have  frequently  followed  false  lights,  and  been  dis- 
illusioned as  much  by  success  as  by  failure.  The  well-known 
law  that  all  institutions  carry  with  them  the  seeds  of  their 
own  dissolution  is  not  so  much  an  illustration  of  the  law 
of  cyclical  revolution,  as  a  proof  that  we  have  been  carried 
to  and  fro  by  every  wind  of  doctrine.  What  we  need  is  a 
fixed  and  absolute  standard  of  values,  that  we  may  know 
what  we  want  to  get  and  whither  we  want  to  go.  It  is  no 
answer  to  say  that  all  values  are  relative  and  ought  to 
change.  Some  values  are  not  relative  but  absolute. 
Spiritual  progress  must  be  within  the  sphere  of  a  reality 
which  is  not  itself  progressing,  or  for  which,  in  Milton's 
grand  words,  '  progresses  the  dateless  and  irrevoluble 
circle  of  its  own  perfection,  joining  inseparable  hands  with 
joy  and  bliss  in  over-measure  for  ever.'  Assuredly  there 
must  be  advance  in  our  apprehension  of  the  ideal,  which 
can  never  be  fully  realised  because  it  belongs  to  the  eternal 


182  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

world.  We  count  not  ourselves  to  have  apprehended  in 
aspiration  any  more  than  in  practice.  As  Nicolas  of  Cusa 
says  :  '  To  be  able  to  know  ever  more  and  more  without 
end,  this  is  our  likeness  to  the  eternal  Wisdom.  Man 
always  desires  to  know  better  what  he  knows,  and  to  love 
more  what  he  loves  ;  and  the  whole  world  is  not  sufficient 
for  him,  because  it  does  not  satisfy  his  craving  for  know- 
ledge.' But  since  our  object  is  to  enter  within  the  realm  of 
unchanging  perfection,  finite  and  relative  progress  cannot 
be  our  ultimate  aim,  and  such  progress,  like  everything 
else  most  worth  having,  must  not  be  aimed  at  too  directly. 
Our  ultimate  aim  is  to  live  in  the  knowledge  and  enjoyment 
of  the  absolute  values,  Truth,  Goodness,  and  Beauty.  If 
the  Platonists  are  right,  we  shall  shape  our  surroundings 
more  effectively  by  this  kind  of  idealism  than  by  adopting 
the  creed  and  the  methods  of  secularism.  I  have  suggested 
that  our  disappointments  have  been  very  largely  due  to  the 
unworthiness  of  our  ideals,  and  to  the  confused  manner 
in  which  we  have  set  them  before  our  minds.  The  best 
men  and  women  do  not  seem  to  be  subject  to  this  confusion. 
So  far  as  they  can  make  their  environment,  it  is  a  society 
immensely  in  advance  of  anything  which  has  been  realised 
among  mankind  generally. 

If  any  social  amelioration  is  to  be  hoped  for,  its  main 
characteristic  will  probably  be  simplification  rather  than 
further  complexity.  This,  however,  is  not  a  question  which 
can  be  handled  at  the  end  of  a  lecture. 

Plato  says  of  his  ideal  State  that  it  does  not  much 
matter  whether  it  is  ever  realised  on  earth  or  not.  The 
type  is  laid  up  in  heaven,  and  approximations  to  it  will 
be  made  from  time  to  time,  since  all  living  creatures  are 
drawn  upwards  towards  the  source  of  their  being.  It  does 
not  matter  very  much,  if  he  was  right  in  believing — as  we 
too  believe — in  human  immortality.  And  yet  it  does 
matter  ;  for  unless  our  communing  with  the  eternal  Ideas 
endows  us  with  some  creative  virtue,  some  power  which 
makes  itself  felt  upon  our  immediate  environment,  it  cannot 
be  that  we  have  made  those  Ideas  in  any  sense  our  own. 
There  is  no  alchemy  by  which  we  may  get  golden  conduct 
out  of  leaden  instincts — so  Herbert  Spencer  told  us  very 


THE  IDEA  OF  PKOGKESS  183 

truly ;  but  if  our  ideals  are  of  gold,  there  is  an  alchemy 
which  will  transmute  our  external  activities,  so  that  our 
contributions  to  the  spiritual  temple  may  be  no  longer 
'  wood,  hay,  and  stubble,'  to  be  destroyed  in  the  next 
conflagration,  but  precious  and  durable  material. 

For  individuals,  then,  the  path  of  progress  is  always 
open  ;  but,  as  Hesiod  told  us  long  before  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  it  is  a  narrow  path,  steep  and  difficult,  especially 
at  first.  There  will  never  be  a  crowd  gathered  round  this 
gate;  '  few  there  be  that  find  it.'  For  this  reason,  we  must 
cut  down  our  hopes  for  our  nation,  for  Europe,  and  for 
humanity  at  large,  to  a  very  modest  and  humble  aspiration. 
We  have  no  millennium  to  look  forward  to  ;  but  neither 
need  we  fear  any  protracted  or  widespread  retrogression. 
There  will  be  new  types  of  achievement  which  will  enrich 
the  experience  of  the  race  ;  and  from  time  to  time,  in  the 
long  vista  which  science  seems  to  promise  us,  there  will  be 
new  flowering-times  of  genius  and  virtue,  not  less  glorious 
than  the  age  of  Sophocles  or  the  age  of  Shakespeare. 
They  will  not  merely  repeat  the  triumphs  of  the  past,  but 
will  add  new  varieties  to  the  achievements  of  the  human 
mind. 

Whether  the  human  type  itself  is  capable  of  further 
physical,  intellectual,  or  moral  improvement,  we  do  not 
know.  It  is  safe  to  predict  that  we  shall  go  on  hoping, 
though  our  recent  hopes  have  ended  in  disappointment. 
Our  lower  ambitions  partly  succeed  and  partly  fail,  and 
never  wholly  satisfy  us  ;  of  our  more  worthy  visions  for 
our  race  we  may  perhaps  cherish  the  faith  that  no  pure 
hope  can  ever  wither,  except  that  a  purer  may  grow  out  of 
its  roots. 


THE  VICTORIAN  AGE 

EACH  generation  takes  a  special  pleasure  in  removing 
the  household  gods  of  its  parents  from  their  pedestals, 
and  consigning  them  to  the  cupboard.  The  prophet  or 
pioneer,  after  being  at  first  declared  to  be  unintelligible 
or  absurd,  has  a  brief  spell  of  popularity,  after  which  he  is 
said  to  be  conventional,  and  then  antiquated.  We  may 
find  more  than  one  reason  for  this.  A  movement  has 
more  to  fear  from  its  disciples  than  from  its  critics. 
The  great  man  is  linked  to  his  age  by  his  weakest 
side  ;  and  his  epigoni,  who  are  not  great  men,  carica- 
ture his  message  and  make  it  ridiculous.  Besides,  every 
movement  is  a  reaction,  and  generates  counter-reactions. 
The  pendulum  swings  backwards  and  forwards.  Every 
institution  not  only  carries  within  it  the  seeds  of  its  own 
dissolution,  but  prepares  the  way  for  its  most  hated  rival. 
The  German  Von  Eicken  found,  in  this  tendency  of 
all  human  movements  to  provoke  violent  reactions,  the 
master  key  of  history.  Every  idea  or  institution  passes 
into  its  opposite.  For  instance,  Roman  imperialism, 
which  was  created  by  an  intense  national  consciousness, 
ended  by  destroying  the  nationality  of  rulers  and  sub- 
jects alike.  The  fanatical  nationalism  of  the  Jews  left 
them  a  people  without  a  country.  The  Catholic  Church 
began  by  renouncing  the  world,  and  became  the  heir  of 
the  defunct  Roman  empire.  In  political  philosophy,  the 
law  of  the  swinging  pendulum  may  act  as  a  salutary  cold 
douche.  Universal  suffrage,  says  Sybel,  has  always 
heralded  the  end  of  parliamentary  government.  Tocque- 
ville  cap-  this  by  saying  that  the  more  successful  a 
democracy  is  in  levelling  a  population,  the  less  will  be 
the  resistance  which  the  next  despotism  will  encounter. 

184 


THE  VICTORIAN  AGE  185 

But  the  pendulum  sometimes  swings  very  slowly,  and 
oscillates  within  narrow  limits  ;  while  at  other  times  the 
changes  are  violent  and  rapid.  The  last  century  and  a 
half,  beginning  with  what  Arnold  Toynbee  was  the  first 
to  call  the  Industrial  Revolution,  has  been  a  period  of 
more  rapid  change  than  any  other  which  history  records. 
The  French  Revolution,  which  coincided  with  its  first 
stages,  helped  to  break  the  continuity  between  the  old 
order  and  the  new,  and  both  by  its  direct  influence  and 
by  the  vigorous  reactions  which  it  generated  cleft  society 
into  conflicting  elements.  Then  followed  a  Great  War, 
which  shook  the  social  structure  to  its  base,  and  awakened 
into  intense  vitality  the  slumbering  enthusiasm  of  nation- 
ality. At  the  same  time,  a  variety  of  mechanical  inven- 
tions gave  man  an  entirely  new  control  over  the  forces 
of  nature  and  a  new  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  nature,  and 
this  new  knowledge,  not  content  with  practical  applica- 
tions, soon  revolutionised  all  the  natural  sciences,  and 
profoundly  affected  both  religion  and  philosophy.  The 
reign  of  Queen  Victoria,  which  I  have  chosen  to  mark  the 
limits  of  my  survey  to-day,  covered  the  latter  half  of  this 
saeculum  mirabile,  the  most  wonderful  century  in  human 
history. 

There  are  of  course  no  beginnings  or  ends  in  history. 
We  may  walk  for  a  few  miles  by  the  side  of  a  river,  noting 
its  shallows  and  its  rapids,  the  gorges  which  confine  it 
and  the  plains  through  which  it  meanders  ;  but  we  know 
that  we  have  seen  neither  the  beginning  nor  the  end  of  its 
course,  that  the  whole  river  has  an  unbroken  continuity, 
and  that  sections,  whether  of  space  or  time,  are  purely 
arbitrary.  We  are  always  sowing  our  future ;  we  are 
always  reaping  our  past.  The  Industrial  Revolution  began 
in  reality  before  the  accession  of  George  III,  and  the 
French  monarchy  was  stricken  with  mortal  disease 
before  Louis  XV  bequeathed  his  kingdom  to  his  luckless 
successor. 

But  there  can  be  no  question  that  the  river  of  civilisa- 
tion reached  a  stretch  of  rapids  towards  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  For  instance,  in  locomotion  the 
riding-horse  and  pack-horse  had  hardly  given  place  to 


186  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

the  coach  and  waggon  ^before  the  railway  superseded 
road  traffic  ;  the  fast  sailing  clippers  had  a  short  lease  of 
life  before  steam  was  used  for  crossing  the  seas.  In- 
dustrial changes  came  too  quickly  for  the  government  to 
make  the  necessary  readjustments,  at  a  time  when  the 
nation  was  righting  for  its  life  and  then  recovering  from 
its  exhaustion.  The  greatest  sufferings  caused  by  the 
revolution  in  the  life  of  the  people  were  in  the  first  half 
of  the  century  ;  the  latter  half  was  a  time  of  readjust- 
ment and  reform.  One  great  interest  of  the  Victorian 
Age  is  that  it  was  the  time  when  a  new  social  order  was 
being  built  up,  and  entirely  new  problems  were  being 
solved.  The  nineteenth  century  has  been  called  the  age 
of  hope  ;  and  perhaps  only  a  superstitious  belief  in  the 
automatic  progress  of  humanity  could  have  carried  our 
fathers  and  grandfathers  through  the  tremendous  diffi- 
culties which  the  rush  through  the  rapids  imposed  upon 
them. 

Let  us  spend  five  minutes  in  picturing  to  ourselves 
the  English  nation  in  a  condition  of  stable  equilibrium,  as 
it  was  in  the  eighteenth  century.  Before  the  Industrial 
Revolution,  the  country  was  on  the  whole  prosperous  and 
contented.  The  masses  had  no  voice  in  the  government, 
but  most  of  them  had  a  stake  in  the  country.  There  were 
no  large  towns,  except  London,  and  the  typical  unit  was  the 
self-contained  village,  which  included  craftsmen  as  well  as 
agriculturists,  and  especially  workers  in  wool,  the  staple 
national  industry.  The  aim  of  village  agriculture  was  to 
provide  subsistence  for  the  parishioners,  not  to  feed  the 
towns.  The  typical  village  was  a  street  of  cottages,  each 
with  a  small  garden,  and  an  open  field  round  it,  divided 
up  like  a  modern  allotments  area.  The  roads  between 
villages  were  mere  tracks  across  the  common,  often  so 
bad  that  carts  were  driven  by  preference  through  the 
fields,  as  they  still  are  in  Greece.  So  each  parish  pro- 
vided for  its  own  needs.  The  population  was  sparse,  and 
increased  very  slowly,  in  spite  of  the  enormous  birthrate, 
because  the  majority  of  the  children  died.  Families  like 
that  of  Dean  Colet,  who  was  one  of  twenty-two  children, 
among  whom  he  was  the  only  one  to  grow  up,  remained 


THE  VICTORIAN  AGE  187 

common  till  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Then, 
for  reasons  which  have  never,  I  think,  been  fully  explained, 
the  deathrate  rapidly  declined,  at  the  very  time  when 
economic  conditions  demanded  a  larger  population.  This 
is  the  more  remarkable,  when  we  remember  the  manner 
in  which  young  children  were  treated  before  the  Factory 
Acts. 

Political  power  was  in  the  hands  of  a  genuine  aristo- 
cracy, who  did  more  to  deserve  their  privileges  than  any 
other  aristocracy  of  modern  times.  They  were,  as  a  class, 
highly  cultivated  men,  who  had  travelled  much  on  the 
Continent,  and  mixed  in  society  there.  In  1785  Gibbon 
was  told  that  40,000  English  were  either  travelling  or 
living  abroad  at  one  time.  They  were  enlightened  patrons 
of  literature  and  art,  and  made  the  collections  of  master- 
pieces which  were  the  pride  of  England,  and  which  are 
now  being  dispersed  to  the  winds.  Their  libraries  were 
well  stocked,  and  many  of  them  were  accomplished 
classical  scholars.  They  were  not  content,  like  their 
successors  to-day,  to  load  their  tables  with  magazines  and 
newspapers.  Lastly,  they  fought  Napoleon  to  a  finish, 
and  never  showed  the  white  feather.  Those  who  have 
studied  the  family  portraits  in  a  great  house,  or  the 
wonderful  portrait  gallery  in  the  Provost's  Lodge  at  Eton, 
will  see  on  the  faces  not  only  the  pride  and  self-satisfaction 
of  a  privileged  class,  but  the  power  to  lead  the  nation 
whether  in  the  arts  of  war  or  of  peace. 

No  doubt,  political  corruption  was  rampant ;  but  it 
was  not  till  George  III  tried  to  govern  personally  by  means 
of  corruption,  that  its  consequences  were  disastrous. 
The  loss  of  America  was  the  first  serious  blow  to  the 
aristocratic  regime. 

The  necessary  changes  would  have  come  about  earlier 
but  for  the  French  Revolution  and  the  war.  The  former 
caused  a  panic  which  now  seems  to  us  exaggerated.  But 
we  are  accustomed  to  revolutions,  and  know  that  they 
never  last  more  than  a  few  years  ;  the  French  Revolution 
was  the  first  of  its  kind.  Moreover,  France  had  long  been 
the  acknowledged  leader  of  civilisation,  and  a  general 
overturn  in  that  country  terrified  men  like  Gibbon  into 


188  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

prophesying  that  a  similar  outbreak  was  likely  to  over- 
whelm law,  order  and  property  in  England.  They  did 
not  realise  how  different  the  conditions  were  in  the  two 
countries.  The  most  modest  democratic  reforms  were 
therefore  impossible  till  Napoleon  was  out  of  the  way, 
and  till  the  anti-revolutionary  panic  had  subsided. 

One  result  of  the  war  has  not  always  been  realised. 
The  eighteenth  century  had  been  international ;  there  was 
not  much  Chauvinism  or  Jingoism  anywhere  till  the 
French,  fighting  ostensibly  under  the  banner  of  humanity, 
had  kindled  the  fire  of  patriotism  in  Spain,  in  Germany, 
and  even  in  Russia.  England  had  always  had  a  strong 
national  self-consciousness  ;  and  after  the  war  the  bonds 
of  sympathy  with  France  were  not  at  once  renewed,  so 
that  our  country,  during  the  early  part  of  Victoria's  reign, 
was  more  isolated  from  the  main  currents  of  European 
thought  than  ever,  before  or  since.  Men  of  letters  who 
lamented  this  isolation  now  turned  for  inspiration  rather 
to  Germany  than  to  France.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
war  did  not  interrupt  the  intellectual  life  of  the  country 
to  anything  like  the  same  extent  as  the  recent  Great  War. 
At  no  period  since  the  Elizabethans  was  there  such  an 
output  of  great  poetry  ;  and  it  does  not  seem  to  have 
occurred  to  any  young  lady  of  that  time  to  ask  Scott 
or  Wordsworth  what  they  were  doing  during  the  war. 

Modern  sociologists  have  drawn  lurid  pictures  of  the 
condition  of  the  working  class  during  the  earlier  part  of 
the  last  century.  It  seems  in  truth  to  have  been  very 
bad.  Byron  in  1812  told  the  Lords  :  '  I  have  been  in 
some  of  the  most  oppressed  provinces  of  Turkey,  but 
never  under  the  most  despotic  of  infidel  governments  did 
I  behold  such  squalid  wretchedness  as  I  have  seen  since 
my  return  in  the  very  heart  of  a  Christian  country.'  In 
1831  a  member  of  parliament  said :  '  An  agricultural 
labourer  and  a  pauper — the  words  are  synonymous.' 
Those  who  want  details  can  find  them  in  the  well- 
known  controversial  books  by  the  Hammonds,  which 
state  the  case  against  the  governing  class  in  an  exhaustive 
manner.  There  was  in  fact  too  much  ground  for  Dis- 
raeli's statement  that  England  at  that  time  consisted  of 


THE  VICTORIAN  AGE  189 

two  nations,  the  rich  and  the  poor.  The  poor  were  still 
largely  illiterate,  and  so  inarticulate  ;  and  the  comparative 
absence  of  the  large  half-educated  class  which  now 
dominates  all  public  discussion  made  the  cultivated  gentry 
a  class  apart.  Their  own  standard  of  culture  was  higher 
than  that  of  the  leisured  class  to-day  ;  but  they  took 
little  interest  in  the  lives  of  the  poor,  until  they  were 
forced  to  do  so.  We  however  who  have  witnessed  the 
succession  of  economic  crises  which  attend  and  follow  a 
great  war  ought  not  to  forget  the  appalling  difficulties 
with  which  the  government  was  confronted.  In  1795 
there  was  actual  famine,  which  was  met  by  the  famous 
system  of  doles  out  of  the  rates,  in  augmentation  of 
wages,  a  most  mischievous  bit  of  legislation,  like  the 
similar  expedients  of  the  last  three  years.  It  had  the 
double  effect  of  pauperising  the  rural  labourer  and  of 
putting  an  artificial  premium  on  large  families — -the 
children  who  were  carted  off  in  waggon-loads  to  feed  the 
factories.  It  was  repealed  only  when  the  ruined  farmers 
were  abandoning  their  land,  and  the  glebe-owning  clergy 
their  livings.  Fluctuations  in  prices  had  much  to  do 
with  the  miseries  of  the  hungry  thirties  and  forties  ;  but 
over-population,  as  the  economists  of  the  time  pointed  out 
with  perfect  justice,  was  one  of  the  main  causes.  It  was 
not  till  much  later  that  there  was  food  enough  for  all ; 
and  this  was  the  result  of  the  new  wheat-fields  of  America 
and  the  sheep-walks  of  Australia,  which  brought  in  food 
and  took  away  mouths.  In  Ireland  the  barbarous  and 
illiterate  peasantry  multiplied  till  the  population  exceeded 
eight  millions,  when  the  inevitable  famine  illustrated 
nature's  method  of  dealing  with  recklessness.  The  only 
error  with  which  the  economists  of  this  time  may  be 
charged  was  that  they  did  not  realise  that  over-population 
is  the  result  of  a  very  low  standard  of  civilisation. 
Families  are  restricted  whenever  the  parents  have  social 
ambitions  and  a  standard  of  comfort.  Where  they  have 
none,  the  vital  statistics  are  those  of  Russia,  Ireland, 
India  and  China. 

The    astonishing    progress    in    all    measurable    values 
which  marked  the  first  half  of  the  reign  produced  a  whole 


190  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

literature  of  complacency.  I  quoted  some  examples  of 
the  language  which  was  then  common,  in  my  Romanes 
Lecture  on  '  The  Idea  of  Progress.'  Macaulay  supplies 
some  of  the  best  examples.  We  must  remember  that 
the  progress  was  real,  and  that  its  speed  was  unexampled 
in  history.  The  country  was,  in  vulgar  language,  a  going 
concern,  as  it  never  was  before  and  has  not  been  since. 
The  dominions  beyond  the  seas  were  being  peopled  up  and 
consolidated.  At  home  education  was  spreading,  liberty 
was  increasing,  and  the  light  taxes  were  raised  with  an 
ease  which  fortunately  for  ourselves  we  no  longer  even 
remember.  Principles  seemed  to  have  been  discovered 
which  guaranteed  a  further  advance  in  almost  every 
direction,  intellectual  as  well  as  material.  For  that  was 
the  great  age  of  British  science  ;  and  most  branches  of 
literature  were  flourishing.  Hope  told  a  flattering  tale, 
and  optimism  became  a  sort  of  religion. 

Nevertheless,  such  complacency  was  bound  to  produce 
a  violent  protest.  Disraeli,  whose  well-remembered  warn- 
ing about  '  the  two  nations  '  has  already  been  quoted, 
described  the  age  as  one  which  by  the  help  of  mechanical 
inventions  had  mistaken  comfort  for  progress.  And  com- 
fort, as  another  critic  of  social  science  has  said,  is  more 
insidious  than  luxury  in  hampering  the  higher  develop- 
ment of  a  people.  The  literature  of  social  indignation 
was  contemporaneous  with  the  literature  of  complacency. 
Carlyle  and  Ruskin  were  its  chief  prophets  ;  but  we  must 
not  forget  the  novels  of  Dickens,  Charles  Reade  and 
Kingsley. 

Carlyle  and  Ruskin  both  denounced  the  age  with  the 
vehemence  of  major  prophets — vehemence  was  in  fashion 
at  that  time  in  English  literature — but  they  did  not 
approach  the  '  condition  of  England  question '  from  quite 
the  same  angle.  Carlyle  was  a  Stoic,  or  in  other  words 
a  Calvinist  without  dogmas  ;  he  had  also  learned  to  be  a 
mystic  from  his  studies  of  German  idealism.  He  repre- 
sents one  phase  of  the  anti-French  reaction  ;  he  hated 
most  of  the  ideas  of  1789,  as  displayed  in  their  results. 
He  hated  the  scepticism  of  the  Revolution,  its  negations, 
its  love  of  claptrap  rhetoric  and  fine  phrases,  and  above 


THE  VICTORIAN  AGE  191 

all  its  anarchism.  He  wished  to  see  society  well  ordered, 
under  its  wisest  men  ;  he  wished  to  overcome  materialism 
by  idealism,  and  loose  morality  by  industry  and  the  fear  of 
God.  Justice,  he  declared,  is  done  in  this  world  ;  right  is 
might,  if  we  take  long  views.  Institutions  collapse  when 
they  become  shams,  and  no  longer  fulfil  their  function. 
The  sporting  squires  ought  to  be  founding  colonies  instead 
of  preserving  game.  As  for  the  new  industrialism,  he 
disliked  it  with  the  fervour  of  a  Scottish  peasant. 

Ruskin  was  a  Platonist,  steeped  in  the  study  of  Plato, 
and  bound  to  him  by  complete  sympathy.  We  cannot 
separate  Ruskin  the  art-critic  from  Ruskin  the  social 
reformer.  His  great  discovery  was  the  close  connexion 
of  the  decay  of  art  with  faulty  social  arrangements.  Ugli- 
ness in  the  works  of  man  is  a  symptom  of  social  disease. 
He  could  not  avert  his  eyes  from  the  modern  town,  as 
Wordsworth  did,  because  the  modern  town  meant  a  great 
deal  to  him,  and  all  of  it  was  intolerable.  He  observed 
that  the  disappearance  of  beauty  in  human  productions 
synchronised  with  the  invention  of  machinery  and  the 
development  of  great  industries,  and  he  could  not  doubt 
that  the  two  changes  were  interconnected.  We  some- 
times forget  that  until  the  reign  of  George  III  a  town 
was  regarded  as  improving  a  landscape.  A  city  was  a 
glorious  and  beautiful  thing,  an  object  to  be  proud  of. 
The  hill  of  Zion  is  a  fair  place,  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth, 
because  it  had  the  holy  city  built  upon  it.  Never  since 
civilisation  began  has  such  ugliness  been  created  as  the 
modern  English  or  American  town.  Ruskin  saw  in  these 
structures  a  true  index  of  the  mind  of  their  builders  and 
inhabitants,  and  the  sight  filled  him  with  horror.  He 
read  with  entire  approval  what  Plato  wrote  of  industrial- 
ised Athens.  '  The  city  of  which  we  are  speaking,'  he 
says  in  the  '  Laws,'  '  is  some  eighty  furlongs  from  the  sea. 
Then  there  is  some  hope  that  your  citizens  may  be  virtu- 
ous. Had  you  been  on  the  sea,  and  well  provided  with 
harbours,  and  an  importing  rather  than  a  producing 
country,  some  mighty  saviour  would  have  been  needed, 
and  lawgivers^more  than  mortal,  if  you  were  to  have 
even  a  chance  of  preserving  your  State  from  degeneracy. 


192  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

The  sea  is  pleasant  enough  as  a  daily  companion,  but  it 
has  a  bitter  and  brackish  quality,  filling  the  streets  with 
merchants  and  shopkeepers,  and  begetting  in  the  souls 
of  men  uncertain  and  dishonest  ways,  making  the  State 
unfaithful  and  unfriendly  to  her  own  children  and  to  other 
nations.'  Like  Plato,  Kuskin  would  fain  have  returned  to 
a  much  simpler  social  structure,  when  each  country,  and 
even  to  a  great  extent  each  village,  was  sufficient  to  itself. 
He  did  not  show  how  such  a  return  is  possible  without 
blowing  up  the  great  towns  and  their  inhabitants  ;  but 
he  quite  seriously  regarded  the  Industrial  Eevolution  as 
a  gigantic  blunder,  and  believed  that  England  would 
never  be  healthy  or  happy  until  what  his  contemporaries 
called  progress  had  been  somehow  swept  away  with  all 
its  works.  How  this  was  to  be  done  he  hardly  considered. 
Like  a  true  Platonist,  he  set  before  his  countrymen,  in 
glowing  language,  the  beauty  of  the  eternal  Ideas  or  abso- 
lute Values,  pleaded  that  there  was  no  necessary  connexion 
between  equality  of  production  and  equality  of  remunera- 
tion, and  instituted  various  experiments,  not  all  un- 
successful, in  restoring  the  old  handicrafts  and  the  temper 
which  inspired  them. 

The  problem  of  mending  or  ending  industrialism, 
foolishly  called  capitalism,  remains  unsolved.  Ruskin's 
own  artistic  life  would  have  been,  impossible  without  the 
paternal  sherry  and  the  rich  men  who  drank  it ;  and 
Morris'  exquisite  manufactures  depended  absolutely  on  the 
patronage  of  the  capitalists  whom  he  denounced.  But 
the  indignation  which  these  Victorian  social  reformers 
exhibited  had  much  justification,  even  after  the  worst 
abuses  had  been  partially  remedied. 

A  mixture  of  rapid  progress  and  extreme  departmental 
inefficiency  is  one  of  the  characteristics  of  the  earlier  part 
of  the  reign.  Lord  Justice  Bowen  has  written  an  instruc- 
tive sketch  of  the  administration  of  the  Law  between  1837 
and  1887.  There  were  two  systems  of  judicature,  Law  and 
Equity,  with  a  different  origin,  different  procedure,  and 
different  rules  of  right  and  wrong.  One  side  of  West- 
minster Hall  gave  judgments  which  the  other  side 
restrained  the  successful  party  from  enforcing.  The 


THE  VICTORIAN  AGE  193 

bewildered  litigant  was  driven  backwards  and  forwards. 
Merchants  were  hindered  for  months  and  years  from  re- 
covering their  dues.  The  fictitious  adventures  of  John 
Doe  and  Richard  Roe,  the  legal  Gog  and  Magog,  played 
an  important  part  in  trials  to  recover  possession  of  land. 
Arrears  accumulated  year  by  year.  The  Court  of  Chan- 
cery was  closed  to  the  poor,  and  was  a  name  of  terror  to 
the  rich.  It  was  said  by  a  legal  writer  that  '  no  man  can 
enter  into  a  Chancery  suit  with  any  reasonable  hope  of 
being  alive  at  its  termination,  if  he  has  a  determined 
adversary.'  Bowen  says  that  Dickens'  pictures  of  the 
English  law  '  contain  genuine  history.'  The  horrors  of 
the  debtors'  prison  are  well  known,  and  nearly  4000 
persons  were  sometimes  arrested  for  debt  in  one  year.  In 
1836,  494  persons  were  condemned  to  death,  though  only 
34  were  hanged.  Public  executions  continued  to  1867. 
If  a  farmer's  gig  knocked  down  a  foot  passenger  in  a  lonely 
lane,  two  persons  were  not  allowed  to  speak  in  court— the 
farmer  and  the  pedestrian.  Most  of  these  abuses  were 
rectified  long  before  the  end  of  the  reign. 

The  Universities  were  slowly  emerging  from  the  depths 
to  which  they  had  sunk  in  the  eighteenth  century,  when 
they  neither  taught  nor  examined  nor  maintained  dis- 
cipline. We  all  remember  Gibbon's  description  of  the 
Fellows  of  his  College,  '  whose  dull  but  deep  potations 
excused  the  brisker  intemperance  of  youth.'  These 
gentlemen  were  most  of  them  waiting  for  College  livings, 
to  which  they  were  allowed  to  carry  off,  as  a  solatium, 
some  dozens  of  College  port.  Cambridge,  it  is  only  fair 
to  say,  never  fell  quite  so  low  as  Oxford,  and  began  to 
reform  itself  earlier.  The  Mathematical  and  Classical 
Triposes  were  both  founded  before  Queen  Victoria's  acces- 
sion. But  public  opinion  thought  that  the  University 
authorities  needed  some  stimulation  from  outside,  and  in 
1850  a  Royal  Commission  was  appointed  for  Oxford,  and 
two  years  later  another  for  Cambridge.  The  Reports  of 
these  two  Commissions  are  very  amusing,  especially  that 
of  the  Oxford  Board,  which  lets  itself  go  in  a  refreshing 
style.  Its  members  had  received  provocation.  The 
Governing  Bodies  generally  refused  to  answer  their 

n.  o 


194  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

questions.  Some  of  the  Colleges  had  exacted  an  oath  from 
new  Fellows  to  reveal  nothing  about  the  affairs  of  the 
College.  The  Dean  of  Christ  Church  declined  to  answer 
letters  from  the  Koyal  Commission  ;  the  President  of 
Magdalen  replied  that  he  was  not  aware  that  he  had  mis- 
used his  revenues,  and  begged  to  close  the  correspondence. 
These  dignified  potentates  are  not  spared  in  the  Keport. 
The  Cambridge  Report,  which  is  much  more  polite,  did 
good  service  by  recommending  the  foundation  of  a  medical 
school.  Other  changes,  such  as  the  abolition  of  all  Anglican 
privileges,  and  the  permission  of  Fellows  to  marry,  came 
later.  In  the  case  of  the  Universities,  as  in  that  of  the 
Law,  the  improvements  between  1837  and  the  first  Jubilee 
were  enormous. 

The  Civil  Service,  it  is  almost  needless  to  say,  was  a 
sanctuary  of  aristocratic  jobbery.  Many  of  the  clerks 
were  rather  supercilious  gentlemen,  who  arrived  late  and 
departed  early  from  their  offices. 

The  Army  in  1837  consisted,  in  actual  strength,  of 
about  100,000  men,  of  whom  19,000  were  in  India  and 
20,000  in  Ireland.  There  had  been  a  strong  movement 
after  the  peace  to  abolish  the  Army  altogether,  on  the 
ground  that  another  war  was  almost  unthinkable.  The 
Duke  of  Wellington  was  only  able  to  keep  up  this  small 
force  by  hiding  it  away  in  distant  parts  of  the  empire ; 
the  total  number  of  troops  in  Great  Britain  was  only 
26,000.  Officers  were  ordered  to  efface  themselves  by 
never  wearing  uniform  except  on  parade.  A  Royal  Duke 
could  not  be  given  a  military  funeral,  because  '  there  were 
not  troops  enough  to  bury  a  Field  Marshal.'  As  to  the 
quality  of  the  troops,  the  Duke  frequently  called  them 
'  the  scum  of  the  earth,'  and  the  brutal  discipline  of  the 
time  did  everything  to  justify  this  description,  for  the 
soldier  was  supposed  to  have  surrendered  all  his  rights  as  a 
man  and  a  citizen.  The  privates  enlisted  for  life  or  for 
twenty-one  years,  and  it  was  so  difficult  to  get  recruits 
that  they  were  frequently  caught  while  drunk,  or  frankly 
kidnapped.  They  were  dressed,  for  campaigning  in  the 
tropics,  in  high  leather  stocks  and  buttoned-up  jackets, 
so  that  hundreds  died  of  heat  apoplexy.  Lord  Wolseley 


THE  VICTORIAN  AGE  195 

thought  that  in  1837  50,000  Frenchmen  could  have  easily 
taken  London.  Nor  was  the  danger  of  a  French  invasion 
at  all  remote.  The  Volunteer  movement,  the  social  effects 
of  which  were  excellent,  was  mainly  due  to  the  Prince 
Consort,  a  far  wiser  man  than  was  recognised  during  his 
lifetime. 

The  Crimean  War  revealed  in  glaring  colours  the  in- 
competence of  the  military  authorities  and  of  the  Cabinet 
at  home.  If  we  had  been  fighting  against  any  European 
power  except  Russia,  with  whom  utter  mismanagement  is 
a  tradition,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  our  Army  would 
have  been  destroyed,  as  it  ought  to  have  been  at  Inker- 
man.  The  military  credit  of  the  nation  was  only  partially 
restored  by  the  prompt  suppression  of  the  Indian  Mutiny. 
Yet  here  again  the  age  of  hope  and  progress  made  good  its 
professions.  The  mistakes  in  the  Boer  War  seem  not  to 
have  been  nearly  so  bad  as  those  in  the  Crimea. 

It  would  be  easy  to  go  through  the  other  departments 
of  national  life — the  Navy,  Finance,  Colonial  and  Indian 
Policy,  the  growth  and  distribution  of  Wealth,  Locomotion 
and  Transport,  Education,  Science,  Medicine  and  Surgery, 
and  to  prove  that  the  progress  during  the  reign  of  Queen 
Victoria  was  quite  unprecedented.  The  creed  of  optimism 
was  natural  and  inevitable  at  such  a  time,  though  cool 
heads  might  remember  the  line  of  Publilius  Syrus, 

Ubi  nil  timetur,  quod  timeatur  nascitur. 

Lecky,  a  historian  with  some  practical  experience  of 
politics,  deliberately  stated  his  opinion  that  no  country 
was  ever  better  governed  than  England  between  1832  and 
1867,  the  dates  of  the  first  Reform  Bill  and  of  Disraeli's 
scheme  to  dish  the  Whigs.  As  far  as  internal  affairs  go. 
it  would  not  be  easy  to  prove  him  wrong.  The  one  prime 
necessity  for  good  government  was  present :  those  who 
paid  the  taxes  were  also  those  who  imposed  them.  If 
there  was  some  false  economy,  as  there  was  in  the  Crimean 
War,  sound  finance  benefited  the  whole  population  by 
keeping  credit  high,  interest  low,  and  taxation  light. 
Political  life  was  purer  than  it  had  been,  and  purer  prob- 
ably than  it  is  now.  The  Hou.se  of  Commons  enjoyed 


196  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

that  immense  prestige  which  has  been  completely  lost 
since  the  old  Queen's  death.  The  debates  were  read  with 
semi-religious  fervour  by  every  good  citizen  over  his  break- 
fast, and  a  prominent  politician  was  treated  with  even 
more  exaggerated  reverence  than  our  worthy  grandfathers 
paid  to  bishops.  The  debates  were  good  because  they 
were  real  debates  and  conducted  by  men  who  all  spoke 
the  same  language.  The  rhetorical  methods  of  the 
working  man  are  quite  different  from  those  of  the  gentry, 
and  mutual  annoyance  is  generated  by  the  mixture  of 
styles  in  debate.  Above  all,  the  House  of  Commons 
was  still  a  rather  independent  body.  The  history  of 
England  shows  that  as  soon  as  the  Commons  freed  them- 
selves from  the  control  of  the  king,  they  began  to  try  to 
free  themselves  from  the  control  of  the  constituencies. 
They  debated  in  secret ;  they  made  their  persons  legally 
sacrosanct ;  and  on  several  occasions  they  turned  out  a 
member  who  had  been  duly  elected  by  his  constituents, 
and  admitted  a  member  who  had  been  duly  rejected. 
These  encroachments  could  not  last  long.  The  Brad- 
laugh  case  was  the  last  attempt  to  repeat  the  tactics  by 
which  Wilkes  was  kept  out  of  Parliament  ;  but  until  the 
poisonous  delegate  theory  obtained  currency,  the  member 
of  Parliament  was  a  real  legislator,  with  a  right  to  think, 
speak  and  vote  for  himself.  During  the  middle  part 
of  the  reign,  the  dramatic  duel  between  Gladstone  and 
Disraeli  gave  a  heroic  aspect  to  party  politics,  and  kept 
up  the  public  interest. 

In  foreign  politics  it  is  not  so  easy  to  share  Lecky's 
opinion.  The  opium  war  against  China,  and  the  Crimean 
War,  were  blunders  which  hardly  anyone  now  defends  ; 
and  Palmerston's  habit  of  bullying  weak  foreign  powers 
did  not  really  raise  our  prestige.  For  a  long  time  we 
could  not  make  up  our  minds  whether  France  or  Russia 
was  the  potential  enemy  :  a  vacillation  which  proved  that 
the  balance  of  power,  which  we  thought  so  necessary  for 
our  safety,  already  existed.  Our  statesmen,  in  spite  of  the 
warnings  of  Lord  Acton  and  Matthew  Arnold,  were  blind 
to  the  menace  from  Germany,  down  to  the  end  of  the 
reign  and  later.  The  Crimean  War  only  increased  the 


THE  VICTORIAN  AGE  197 

friction  between  France  and  England.  The  French 
fortified  Cherbourg,  and  talked  openly  of  invasion.  In 
1860  Flahault,  the  French  ambassador  in  London,  said 
bluntly  that  '  his  great  object  was  to  prevent  war  between 
the  two  countries.' 

This  prolonged  jealousy  and  suspicion  between  the 
two  Western  Powers  made  it  impossible  for  England  to 
exercise  much  influence  on  the  Continent.  The  settle- 
ment after  1815  handed  over  central  and  eastern  Europe 
to  governments  of  the  type  which  it  is  the  fashion  to  call 
reactionary.  Russia,  Prussia,  and  Austria,  acting  to- 
gether, were  not  to  be  resisted.  And  so  the  disturbances 
of  1848,  once  more  kindled  by  Paris,  just  failed  ;  and 
democracy  had  a  serious  rebuff.  Nearly  all  the  despotic 
governments  of  Europe  were  overthrown  in  1848,  and 
nearly  all  were  restored  a  year  later.  The  French  indeed 
got  rid  of  their  king,  mainly  because  he  was  a  pacifist  ; 
but  Germany  refused  to  be  unified  under  the  red  flag,  and 
began  to  prepare  for  a  very  different  destiny.  The  Pope 
wobbled  and  then  came  down  heavily  on  the  side  of  the 
old  order.  Meanwhile,  England  looked  on.  Chartism  was 
a  very  feeble  affair  compared  to  the  continental  revolu- 
tions, and  it  flickered  out  in  this  year.  The  people  had 
got  rid  of  the  corn-laws,  and  were  fairly  content ;  there 
was  nothing  at  all  like  a  class  war  in  this  generation.  So, 
while  Macaulay  was  showing  how  very  differently  we 
manage  things  in  England — compare,  for  example,  1688 
with  1848 — we  decided  to  invite  the  world  and  his  wife 
to  London,  to  envy  and  admire  us  in  Sir  Joseph  Paxton's 
great  glass  house.  We  must  not  laugh  at  that  archi- 
tectural monstrosity.  It  was  the  mausoleum  of  certain 
generous  hopes.  On  the  Continent  men  had  been  shot 
and  hanged  for  the  brotherhood  of  the  human  race  ;  we 
hoped  to  show  them  a  more  excellent  way.  We  had  given 
a  lead  in  free  trade  ;  we  still  hoped  that  our  example 
would  soon  be  followed  in  all  civilised  nations.  We  had 
reduced  our  Army  to  almost  nothing ;  we  hoped  that 
militarism  was  a  thing  of  the  past.  All  these  hopes  were 
frustrated.  A  fanatical  nationalism  began  to  foster 
racial  animosity  ;  the  enrages  of  Europe  began  to  preach 


198  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

class-hatred  and  to  find  many  listeners  ;  protective  tariffs 
were  set  up  on  every  frontier  ;  international  law  became 
a  mere  cloak  for  the  schemes  of  violence  ;  and,  as  has 
been  said,  all  Europe  '  breathed  a  harsher  air.'  Worst  of 
all,  the  mad  race  of  competitive  armaments,  which  was 
destined  to  wreck  a  great  part  of  the  wealth  which  two 
generations  of  peaceful  industry  had  gathered,  was  begun. 

We  have  to  remember  that  the  prosperity  and  security 
of  the  happy  time  which  we  are  now  considering  were 
due  to  temporary  causes,  which  can  never  recur.  In  the 
nineteenth  century  England  was  the  most  fortunately 
situated  country,  geographically,  in  the  world.  When  the 
opening  and  development  of  the  Atlantic  trade  deprived 
the  Mediterranean  ports  of  their  pride  of  place,  an  Atlantic 
stage  of  world-commerce  began,  in  which  England,  an 
island  with  good  harbours  on  its  western  coasts,  was  in 
the  most  favourable  position.  The  Pacific  stage  which 
is  now  beginning  must  inevitably  give  the  primacy  to 
America.  We  had  also  a  long  start,  industrially,  over  all 
our  rivals,  and  our  possession  of  great  coal-fields  and  iron- 
fields  close  together  gave  us  a  still  further  advantage.  All 
these  advantages  are  past  or  passing.  Henceforth  we 
shall  have  to  compete  with  other  nations  on  unprivileged 
conditions.  It  is  useless  to  lament  the  inevitable,  but  it 
is  foolish  to  shut  our  eyes  to  it.  The  Victorian  Age  was 
the  culminating  point  of  our  prosperity.  Our  great 
wealth,  indeed,  continued  to  advance  till  the  catastrophe 
of  1914.  But  there  was  a  shadow  of  apprehension  over 
everything — '  never  glad  confident  morning  again.' 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  move- 
ments of  the  reign.  The  Romanticist  revolution  was 
complete,  in  a  sense,  before  1825.  It  was  a  European, 
not  only  an  English  movement,  and  perhaps  it  was  not 
less  potent  in  France  than  in  Germany  and  England, 
though  in  accordance  with  the  genius  and  traditions  of 
that  nation  it  took  very  different  forms.  In  England  it 
inspired  verse  more  than  prose,  though  we  must  not  for- 
get Scott's  novels.  It  produced  a  galaxy  of  noble  poetry 
during  the  Great  War,  and  added  another  immortal  glory 
to  that  age  of  heroic  struggle.  By  a  strange  chance, 


THE  VICTORIAN  AGE  199 

nearly  all  the  great  poets  of  the  war-period  died  young. 
Wordsworth  alone  was  left,  and  he  was  spared  to  reap 
in  a  barren  old  age  the  honours  which  he  had  earned  and 
not  received  between  1798  and  1820.  For  about  fifteen 
years  there  was  an  interregnum  in  English  literature, 
which  makes  a  convenient  division  between  the  great  men 
of  the  Napoleonic  era  and  the  great  Victorians. 

tFrom  about  1840,  when  great  literature  again  began 
to  appear,  the  conditions  were  more  like  those  with  which 
we  are  familiar.  There  was  an  unparalleled  output  of 
books  of  all  kinds,  a  very  large  reading  public,  and  a 
steadily  increasing  number  of  professional  authors  de- 
pendent on  the  success  of  their  popular  appeal.  As  in 
our  own  day,  a  great  quantity  of  good  second-rate  talent 
trod  on  the  heels  of  genius,  and  made  it  more  difficult  for 
really  first-rate  work  to  find  recognition.  The  impetus  of 
the  Romantic  movement  was  by  no  means  exhausted, 
but  it  began  to  spread  into  new  fields.  The  study  of 
'  Gothic  '  art  and  literature  had  been  at  first,  as  was  in- 
evitable, ill-informed.  Its  reconstruction  of  the  Middle 
Ages  was  a  matter  of  sentimental  antiquarianism,  no 
more  successful  than  much  of  its  church  restoration.  The 
Victorians  now  extended  the  imaginative  sensibility,  which 
had  been  expended  on  nature  and  history,  to  the  life  of 
the  individual.  This  meant  that  the  novel  instead  of  the 
poem  was  to  be  the  characteristic  means  of  literary  ex- 
pression ;  and  even  the  chief  Victorian  poets,  Tennyson 
and  Browning,  are  sometimes  novelists  in  verse. 

The  grandest  and  most  fully  representative  figure  in 
all  Victorian  literature  is  of  course  Alfred  Tennyson.  And 
here  let  me  digress  for  one  minute.  It  was  a  good  rule  of 
Thomas  Carlyle  to  set  a  portrait  of  the  man  whom  he 
was  describing  in  front  of  him  on  his  writing-table.  It 
is  a  practice  which  would  greatly  diminish  the  output  of 
literary  impertinence.  Let  those  who  are  disposed  to 
follow  the  present  evil  fashion  of  disparaging  the  great 
Victorians  make  a  collection  of  their  heads  in  photographs 
or  engravings,  and  compare  them  with  those  of  their  own 
favourites.  Let  them  set  up  in  a  row  good  portraits  of 
Tennyson,  Charles  Darwin,  Gladstone,  Manning,  Newman, 


200  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

Martineau,  Lord  Lawrence,  Burne  Jones,  and,  if  they 
like,  a  dozen  lesser  luminaries,  and  ask  themselves  candidly 
whether  men  of  this  stature  are  any  longer  among  us.  I 
will  not  speculate  on  the  causes  which  from  time  to  time 
throw  up  a  large  number  of  great  men  in  a  single  genera- 
tion. I  will  only  ask  you  to  agree  with  me  that  since  the 
golden  age  of  Greece  (assuming  that  we  can  trust  the 
portrait  busts  of  the  famous  Greeks)  no  age  can  boast  so 
many  magnificent  types  of  the  human  countenance  as 
the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria.  We,  perhaps,  being  epigoni 
ourselves,  are  more  at  home  among  our  fellow-pygmies. 
Let  us  agree  with  Ovid,  if  we  will : 

Prisca  iuvent  alios  ;  ego  me  nunc  denique  natum 
Gratulor  ;  haec  aetas  moribus  apta  meis. 

But  let  us  have  the  decency  to  uncover  before  the  great 
men  of  the  last  century  ;  and  if  we  cannot  appreciate 
them,  let  us  reflect  that  the  fault  may  possibly  be  in  our- 
selves. 

Tennyson's  leonine  head  realises  the  ideal  of  a  great 
poet.  And  he  reigned  nearly  as  long  as  his  royal  mistress. 
The  longevity  and  unimpaired  freshness  of  the  great 
Victorians  has  no  parallel  in  history,  except  in  ancient 
Greece.  The  great  Attic  tragedians  lived  as  long  as 
Tennyson  and  Browning  ;  the  Greek  philosophers  reached 
as  great  ages  as  Victorian  theologians  ;  but  if  you  look  at 
the  dates  in  other  flowering  times  of  literature  you  will 
find  that  the  life  of  a  man  of  genius  is  usually  short,  and 
his  period  of  production  very  short  indeed. 

Tennyson  is  now  depreciated  for  several  reasons.  His 
technique  as  a  writer  of  verse  was  quite  perfect ;  our 
newest  poets  prefer  to  write  verses  which  will  not  even 
scan.  He  wrote  beautifully  about  beautiful  things,  and 
among  beautiful  things  he  included  beautiful  conduct. 
He  thought  it  an  ugly  and  disgraceful  thing  for  a  wife 
to  be  unfaithful  to  her  husband,  and  condemned 
Guinevere  and  Lancelot  as  any  sound  moralist  would 
condemn  them.  A  generation  which  will  not  buy  a  novel 
unless  it  contains  some  scabrous  story  of  adultery,  and 
revels  in  the  '  realism  '  of  the  man  with  a  muck-rake, 
naturally  '  has  no  use  for '  the  '  Idylls  of  the  King, '  and 


THE  VICTORIAN  AGE  201 

calls  Arthur  the  blameless  prig.  The  reaction  against 
Tennyson  has  culminated  in  abuse  of  the  Idylls,  in  which 
the  present  generation  finds  all  that  it  most  dislikes  in 
the  Victorian  mind.  Modern  research  has  unburied  the 
unsavoury  story  that  Modred  was  the  illegitimate  son  of 
Arthur  by  his  own  half-sister,  and  blames  Tennyson  for 
not  treating  the  whole  story  as  an  Oedipus-legend.  In 
reality,  Malory  does  not  so  treat  it.  He  admits  the  story, 
but  depicts  Arthur  as  the  flower  of  kinghood,  '  Rex 
quondam  rexque  futurus.'  Tennyson,  however,  was  not 
bound  to  follow  Malory.  He  has  followed  other  and  still 
greater  models,  Spenser  and  Milton.  He  has  given  us  an 
allegorical  epic,  as  he  explains  in  his  Epilogue  to  the  Queen : 

Accept  this  old  imperfect  tale, 
New-old,  and  shadowing  Sense  at  war  with  Soul, 
Ideal  manhood  closed  in  real  man 
Rather  than  that  gray  king,  whose  name,  a  ghost, 
Streams  like  a  cloud,  man-shaped,  from  mountain  peak, 
And  cleaves  to  cairn  and  cromlech  still ;  or  him 
Of  Geoffrey's  book,  or  him  of  Malleor's. 

The  whole  poem  is  an  allegory.     Camelot  is 

Never  built  at  all, 
And  therefore  built  for  ever. 

The  charming  novelettes  in  which  the  allegory  is  forgotten 
need  no  more  justification  than  the  adventures  in  •  The 
Faerie  Queene,'  or  the  parliamentary  debates  in  '  Paradise 
Lost.'  The  Idylls  fall  into  line  with  two  of  the  greatest 
poems  in  the  English  language ;  and  when  Tennyson 
writes  of  Arthur,  '  From  the  great  deep  to  the  great  deep 
he  goes,'  he  is  telling  his  own  deepest  conviction  of  what 
our  brief  life  on  earth  means — the  conviction  which  in- 
spires his  last  words  of  poetry,  '  Crossing  the  Bar.' 

Tennyson    knew    materialism    and    revolution,     and 
whither  they  tend. 

The  children  born  of  thee  are  sword  and  fire, 
Red  ruin,  and  the  breaking  up  of  laws. 
And 

The  fear  lest  this  my  realm,  upreared 
By  noble  deeds  at  one  with  noble  vows, 
From  flat  confusion  and  brute  violence 
Reel  back  into  the  beast  and  be  no  more. 


202'  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

We  are  told  that  he  is  shallow,  an  echo  of  the 
thoughts  of  educated  men  at  the  time,  and  that,  like  the 
Victorians  in  general,  he  never  probes  anything  to  the 
bottom.  It  is  true  that  he  reflects  his  age  ;  so  do  almost 
all  other  great  men  ;  and  that  his  age  was  an  age  of 
transition  ;  so,  I  believe,  are  all  other  ages.  He  repre- 
sents his  age  both  in  his  deep-rooted  conservatism  or 
moderate  liberalism,  and  in  his  reverence  for  the  new 
knowledge  which  was  undermining  the  conservative 
stronghold,  especially  in  religion.  He  is  unjustly  re- 
proached with  speaking  contemptuously  of  the  French 
Revolution,  '  the  red  fool-fury  of  the  Seine,'  as  '  no  graver 
than  a  schoolboys'  barring  out.'  He  despised  barricades 
and  red  flags  and  September  massacres,  because  he  be- 
lieved that  the  victories  of  broadening  Freedom  are  to  be 
won  by  constitutional  means.  He  is  a  little  self-righteous 
about  it,  no  doubt ;  that  helps  to  date  him.  He  came, 
we  must  remember,  half-way  between  the  Pantisocracy  of 
Coleridge  and  his  friends  and  the  still  cruder  vagaries  of 
our  young  intellectuals.  Years  brought  the  philosophic 
mind  to  Carlyle,  Southey,  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge. 
Years  will  bring  a  relative  sanity  to  our  young  Bolsheviks ; 
they  will  then,  I  hope  (for  I  wish  them  well),  begin  to  read 
Tennyson.  The  second  '  Locksley  Hall '  is  peculiarly  inter- 
esting for  our  purpose,  because,  though  the  author  pro- 
tested that  it  was  written  in  character,  dramatically,  it  is 
plain  that  it  does  express  his  political  and  social  disillu- 
sionments  and  anxiety  about  the  future  ;  and  Gladstone 
answered  it  as  an  attack  upon  the  England  of  the  day, 
calling  attention  to  the  great  progress  which  had  been 
made  in  the  'sixty  years'  since  the  first  'Locksley  Hall.' 
Tennyson  saw  that  the  Victorian  social  order  was  break- 
ing up  ;  and  with  great  prescience  he  foretold  many  of 
the  evils  which  have  since  come  upon  us.  The  deluge  of 
political  '  babble ' ;  the  indifference  of  the  new  voters 
to  the  grandeur  of  the  British  Empire ;  the  contempt 
for  experience  and  wisdom,  setting  the  feet  above  the 
brain  and  bringing  back  the  dark  ages  without  their 
faith  or  hope ;  the  vague  aspirations  for  international 
friendship,  blighted  by  the  pressure  of  over-population 


THE  VICTORIAN  AGE  203 

and  ending  in  universal  war  :  all  these  shadows  of  coming 
events,  too  clearly  seen,  have  convinced  him  that  there  is 
no  straight  line  of  progress,  but  many  a  backward-stream- 
ing curve,  which  often  seems  more  like  retrogression  than 
progress.  This  is  not  the  language  of  1851.  In  truth 
the  clouds  began  to  gather  before  the  old  Queen  and  the 
old  poet  died.  Even  in  fiction,  the  note  of  disillusion- 
ment is  heard  with  increasing  clearness,  in  the  latest 
novels  of  George  Eliot,  in  writers  like  Gissing,  and  in 
the  later  books  of  Thomas  Hardy  compared  with  the 
earlier. 

In  religion  Tennyson  certainly  represents  the  mood 
of  the  mid-century.  Romanticism  had  given  religion  a 
new  attractiveness  in  the  revolutionary  era.  In  France 
it  stimulated  the  Neo-Catholicism  of  De  Maistre  and 
Chateaubriand ;  in  Germany  it  gave  a  mystical  turn  to 
philosophical  idealism  ;  and  in  England  it  produced  an 
Anglo-Catholic  revival.  But  for  reasons  mentioned  above, 
this  revival  remained  intensely  insular.  England,  and 
perhaps  especially  Oxford,  were  at  this  time  so  cut  off 
from  the  Continent  that  the  isolation  of  the  English  Tract- 
arians  was  not  at  first  felt ;  and  the  constructive  work  of 
philosophers  and  critics  on  the  Continent  was  spurned  as 
'  German  theology.'  So  when  Newman  at  length  took  the 
perhaps  logical  step  of  joining  the  Roman  communion, 
the  Movement  broke  up,  and  its  ablest  members  turned 
against  it  with  the  anger  of  men  who  feel  that  they  have 
been  duped.  Neither  science  nor  criticism  could  be  dis- 
regarded any  longer.  English  scholars  began  to  read 
German,  as  Carlyle  had  exhorted  them  to  do  ;  and  every- 
body began  to  read  Darwin.  There  arose  among  the 
educated  class  an  attitude  towards  religion  which  we 
may  call  very  distinctively  Victorian.  Carlyle  remained 
a  Puritan,  without  any  dogmatic  beliefs  except  a  kind  of 
moralistic  pantheism.  Ruskin  was  a  Protestant  medievalist, 
who  admired  everything  in  a  medieval  cathedral  except 
the  altar.  Tennyson  and  Browning  were  ready  to  let  most 
dogmas  go,  but  clung  passionately  to  the  belief  in  personal 
human  survival.  Tennyson's  famous  lines  '  There  lives 
more  faith  in  honest  doubt,  Believe  me,  than  in  half  the 


204  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

creeds '  have  been  wittily  parodied  by  Samuel  Butler : 
'  There  lives  more  doubt  in  honest  faith '  etc.  The 
sentiment  in  Tennyson's  lines  may  be  easily  defended ; 
but  it  must  be  confessed  that  '  honest  doubt '  was  some- 
thing of  a  pose  at  the  time.  In  reading  such  men  as 
Clough  or  Henri  Amiel,  the  average  man  becomes  im- 
patient, and  is  inclined  to  say  '  Why  can't  the  fellow 
make  up  his  mind  one  way  or  the  other,  and  get  started  ?  ' 
They  carry  suspension  of  judgment  to  the  verge  of  futility, 
and  though  they  obviously  suffer,  one  does  not  feel  very 
sorry  for  them.  It  is  the  opposite  failing  from  that  of 
Macaulay,  who  as  a  historian  suffers  from  a  constitutional 
inability  not  to  make  up  his  mind  on  everything  and 
everybody.  Matthew  Arnold  is  also  a  religious  sceptic  ; 
but  he  has  formulated  a  liberal  Protestant  creed  for  him- 
self, not  very  unlike  that  of  Sir  John  Seeley's '  Ecce  Homo.' 
It  was  not  a  happy  time  for  religious  thinkers,  unless  they 
made  themselves  quite  independent  of  organised  Christi- 
anity. Intolerance  was  very  bitter  ;  and  only  the  secular 
arm  stopped  a  whole  series  of  ecclesiastical  prosecutions, 
which  would  have  made  the  ministry  of  the  Church  of 
England  impossible  except  for  fools,  liars,  and  bigots. 
Real  hatred  was  shown  against  the  scientific  leaders, 
which  Darwin  calmly  ignored,  and  Huxley  returned  with 
interest. 

But  though  the  contradictions  and  perplexities  of  rapid 
transition  were  more  felt  in  religion  than  in  any  other 
subject,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  organised  Christianity 
has  ever  been  more  influential  in  England  than  during 
the  Victorian  age,  before  the  growth  of  the  towns  threw 
all  the  Church's  machinery  out  of  gear.  Many  of  you  will 
remember  Lecky's  charming  description  of  the  typical 
country  parsonage,  and  the  gracious  and  civilising  influ- 
ences which  radiated  from  what  was  often  the  very  ideal 
of  a  Christian  home.  The  description  is  in  no  way  exag- 
gerated ;  and  now  that  high  prices  and  predatory  taxa- 
tion have  destroyed  this  pleasant  and  unique  feature  of 
English  life,  it  is  worth  while  to  recall  to  the  younger 
generation  what  it  was  in  the  time  of  their  fathers  and 
grandfathers. 


THE  VICTORIAN  AGE  205 

I  have  taken  Tennyson  as  my  example  of  Victorian 
literature,  because  his  is  the  greatest  and  most  representa- 
tive name.  It  is  no  reproach  to  say  that  he  is  thoroughly 
English.  Browning  is  more  cosmopolitan,  but  his  method 
of  facing  the  problems  of  life  like  a  bull  at  a  fence  is 
characteristically  English. 

There  is  no  time  to  speak  at  length  of  the  Victorian 
novel,  another  bright  star  in  the  firmament  of  the  reign. 
Our  nation  has  a  great  tradition  in  fiction,  and  we  shall  be 
wise  to  stick  to  it,  instead  of  preferring  a  corrupt  following 
of  the  French,  whose  novelists,  in  spite  of  their  clever 
technique,  seem  to  me  frequently  dull  and  usually  repulsive. 
Dickens  and  Thackeray  have  been  rivals,  almost  like 
Gladstone  and  Disraeli,  and  perhaps  few  are  whole-hearted 
admirers  of  both.  That  any  educated  reader  should  fail 
to  love  one  or  the  other  is  to  me  inexplicable.  The  palmiest 
day  of  English  novel-writing  was  in  the  fifties,  when 
Dickens,  Thackeray,  Charlotte  Bronte,  George  Eliot, 
Anthony  Trollope,  Kingsley,  Disraeli,  Bulwer  Lytton  and 
Meredith  were  all  writing.  Later  in  the  reign  there  was  a 
short  set-back,  and  the  fortunes  of  English  fiction  seemed 
for  a  few  years  to  be  less  promising  than  they  became  in 
the  next  generation,  when  several  new  writers  of  great 
ability  and  charm  appeared.  Now  we  seem  to  be  once 
more  in  the  trough  of  the  wave  ;  and  I  cannot  doubt  that 
the  main  cause  of  the  decay  is  the  pernicious  habit  of 
writing  hastily  for  money.  If  we  take  the  trouble  to 
consult  Mr.  Mudie's  catalogue  of  fiction,  we  shall  learn  to 
our  amazement  that  there  are  several  writers,  whose  names 
we  have  never  heard,  who  have  to  their  discredit  over  a 
hundred  works  of  fiction  apiece.  They  obviously  turn  out 
several  books  a  year,  just  as  a  shoemaker  manufactures 
so  many  pairs  of  boots.  The  great  novelists  have  generally 
written  rapidly,  rather  too  rapidly  ;  but  such  a  cataract  of 
ink  as  these  heroes  of  the  circulating  library  spill  is  abso- 
lutely inconsistent  with  even  second-rate  work.  Literature 
flourishes  best  when  it  is  half  a  trade  and  half  an  art ;  and 
here  again  the  Victorian  Age  occupies  the  most  favourable 
part  of  the  curve. 

Of  the  other  glories  of  Victorian  literature  I  can  say 


206  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

nothing  now.  But  before  leaving  this  part  of  the  subject, 
consider  the  wonderful  variety  of  strong  or  beautiful 
English  prose  writing  which  that  age  produced.  Froude, 
Macaulay,  Newman,  Ruskin,  Pater  and  Stevenson  are  each 
supreme  in  very  different  styles  ;  and  all  of  them  achieved 
excellence  by  an  amount  of  labour  which  very  few  writers 
are  now  willing  to  bestow. 

I  have  no  wish  to  ofier  an  unmeasured  panegyric  on  an 
age  which  after  all  cannot  be  divested  of  the  responsibility 
for  making  our  own  inevitable.  It  was  to  a  considerable 
extent  vulgarised  by  the  amazing  success  of  the  Industrial 
Revolution.  Napoleon's  nation  of  shopkeepers  did  judge 
almost  everything  by  quantitative  standards,  and  by 
quantitative  standards  the  higher  values  cannot  be  mea- 
sured. There  was  no  lack  of  prophets  to  point  out  a  better 
way,  but  the  nation  as  a  whole  was  not  unfairly  caricatured 
as  John  Bull,  that  stout,  comfortable,  rather  bullying 
figure  which  excited  Ruskin's  indignation,  and  which  others 
have  said  that  we  ought  to  burn  instead  of  Guy  Fawkes. 
We  were  unpopular  on  the  Continent  just  when  we  thought 
that  all  other  nations  were  envying  us.  They  did  envy  us, 
but  with  the  underlying  conviction  that  there  must  be 
something  wrong  in  a  world  where  the  Palmerstonian 
John  Bull  comes  out  on  top. 

The  greatness  of  the  age,  as  I  have  said,  depended  on  a 
combination  of  circumstances  in  their  nature  transient. 
It  resembled  the  short-lived  greatness  of  Venice,  Genoa, 
and  Holland.  Before  the  end  of  the  reign  society  had 
begun  to  disintegrate,  so  that  we  find  antagonistic  move- 
ments flourishing  together.  Theoretical  socialism  reached 
its  zenith  ;  but  there  was  also  an  outburst  of  romantic 
imperialism,  of  which  Sir  John  Seeley,  Regius  Professor 
of  History  at  Cambridge,  was  one  of  the  founders,  Froude 
and  Dilke  powerful  propagandists,  Rudyard  Kipling  the 
poet,  and  Joseph  Chamberlain  the  practical  manager. 
It  was  a  mild  attack  of  the  epidemic  which  afterwards 
enticed  Germany  into  the  Great  War,  and  the  worst  that 
can  be  said  of  it  is  that  it  encouraged  a  temper  of  sentimental 
brutality  in  the  English  people,  and  brought  us  for  the  first 
time  into  danger  from  a  coalition  of  foreign  powers.  The 


THE  VICTORIAN  AGE  207 

second  Jubilee  was  its  day  of  triumph  ;  the  Boer  War  the 
beginning  of  its  downfall. 

The  fusion  of  social  classes  proceeded  more  and  more 
rapidly  as  the  century  went  on.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
reign  the  territorial  oligarchs  purchased  another  lease  of 
power  by  an  alliance  with  the  successful  commercial  class 
which,  with  the  Indian  Nabobs,  had  been  violently  radical 
until  the  aristocracy  recognised  them.  The  two  parties 
quarrelled  about  the  Corn  Laws  and  Factory  Acts,  but 
when  these  questions  were  settled,  they  gradually  drew 
together,  while  lavish  new  creations  of  peers  turned  the 
House  of  Lords  into  the  predominantly  middle-class  body 
which  it  is  now.  Towards  the  end  of  the  reign  the  higher 
gentry  began  again  to  go  into  trade,  as  they  had  done  until 
the  Georges  brought  in  German  ideas,  and  the  way  was 
prepared  for  the  complete  destruction  of  social  barriers 
which  the  Great  War  effected.  Meanwhile,  there  were 
ominous  signs  that  our  civilisation,  like  others  in  the  past, 
might  be  poisoned  by  the  noxious  by-products  of  its  own 
activities.  Parasitism  at  both  ends  of  the  scale  became 
an  ever-increasing  burden  on  industry,  and  symptoms  of 
race-deterioration  became  apparent  to  the  very  few  who 
have  eyes  for  such  things.  Legislation  removed  most  of  the 
obvious  evils  in  the  workmen's  lot,  but  one  evil  it  could  not 
remove,  and  this  became  more  grievous  and  more  resented 
every  year.  The  great  industry  was  turning  human 
beings  into  mere  cogs  in  machines,  and  a  type  of  workman 
was  evolved  who  needed  no  craftsmanship  such  as  an 
intelligent  man  could  be  proud  to  acquire  and  happy  to 
exercise.  This  problem,  which  threatens  the  life  of  our 
civilisation,  was  already  beginning  to  loom  darkly  before 
the  eyes  of  the  late  Victorians. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Elizabethan  and  the  Victorian 
Ages  will  appear  to  the  historian  of  the  near  future  as  the 
twin  peaks  in  which  English  civilisation  culminated.  There 
may  be  a  third,  equally  splendid,  period  yet  to  come,  but 
I  do  not  think  that  any  of  us  will  live  to  see  it.  The  re- 
mainder of  the  twentieth  century  will  be  handicapped  by 
tbe  necessity  of  clearing  up  the  mess  made  in  the  last  eight 
years.  However,  the  Napoleonic  War  was  followed,  as  I 


208  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

have  argued,  by  a  very  great  age,  and  I  will  not  be  so  rash 
as  to  prophesy  what  England  will  be  like  thirty  years 
hence.  It  is  for  you,  my  younger  hearers,  to  answer  that 
question,  for  the  answer  depends  on  yourselves.  We  old 
Victorians  will  before  then  have  made  room  for  you  by 
quitting  a  world  to  which,  as  I  am  sure  you  think,  we  no 
longer  belong. 


THE  WHITE  MAN  AND  HIS  RIVALS 

THE  projecting  peninsula  of  Asia  which  the  ancients  called 
Europe 1  covers,  with  its  adjacent  islands,  less  than  two 
million  square  miles  :  an  area  about  the  same  as  that  of 
India,  and  about  half  that  of  Canada.  The  homeland  of 
the  white  man,  if  we  exclude  Russia,  might  be  dropped 
into  Australia  or  Brazil  without  anywhere  coming  near 
the  coast.  And  yet  it  is  no  accident  that  Europe  has 
taken  the  lead  in  civilisation.  It  is  the  only  continent 
which  has  no  deserts  ;  and  its  Mediterranean  shores  are 
perhaps  the  most  favoured  region  of  the  whole  planet. 
Its  popuUtion  consists,  as  we  are  now  taught,  of  three 
distinct  races,  each  with  its  own  characteristics.  The 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean  belong  to  a  dark,  long-headed 
race  which  probably  had  its  original  home  in  North  Africa, 
formerly  connected  with  Europe  by  more  than  one  land 
bridge.  This  race  not  only  occupied  the  northern  coasts 
of  the  Mediterranean,  but  pushed  up  the  warm  Atlantic 
sea-board  as  far  as  Scotland.  The  Mediterranean  man  is 
intolerant  of  severe  cold,  and  has  not  maintained  his 
ascendancy  in  mountainous  districts.  The  race  is  not 
peculiar  to  Europe,  since  much  of  the  Indian  population 
belongs  to  a  kindred  stock,  as  do  the  Berbers  of  North 
Africa  and  the  Semitic  peoples.  The  round-headed  element 
in  the  population  of  Europe,  which  has  been  not  very 
happily  called  Alpine,  came  from  Asia,  and  drove  a  wedge 
across  the  centre  of  the  continent,  forming  at  the  present 
day  a  large  part  of  the  population  in  France  and  Germany, 

1  Russia  is  excluded,  as  being  geographically  part  of  the  Asiatic 
mass. 

n.  209  p 


210  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

and  the  main  part  of  the  Slavonic  nations.  The  third 
factor,  the  Nordic  race,  is  now  believed  to  be  genuinely 
European,  being  indigenous  around  the  Baltic  Sea.  From 
this  centre  it  flooded  the  greater  part  of  Europe  in  suc- 
cessive waves  of  invasion.  Its  well-known  characteristics 
are  tall  stature,  light-coloured  hair  and  eyes,  and  a  roving 
disposition.  Being  a  good  fighter,  though  pugnacious 
rather  than  warlike,  the  Nordic  man  has  been  a  great 
conqueror,  and  has  formed  the  aristocracy  of  many  coun- 
tries inhabited  mainly  by  the  other  European  races. 
Being  a  heavy  eater  and  drinker,  he  is  what  the  Americans 
call  a  high  standard  man,  and  cannot  or  will  not  compete 
by  the  side  of  other  races  in  manual  labour.  This  habit, 
rather  than  his  inability  to  live  in  a  hot  climate,  has  led 
to  his  disappearance  in  several  countries  where  he  con- 
quered but  did  not  expel  the  inhabitants.  His  high 
standard  of  living  and  pride  of  race  are  gradually  extin- 
guishing him  in  North  America  ;  and  in  England,  while 
the  Nordic  man  flourishes  in  the  country  districts  and 
as  a  seafarer,  he  is  apparently  at  a  disadvantage  under 
the  conditions  of  industrial  labour  in  the  towns,  where  a 
smaller  and  darker  type  of  men  is  already  prevalent,  and 
is  becoming  more  so  in  each  generation.  The  industrial 
revolution  has  greatly  diminished  the  preponderance  of 
pure  Nordic  blood  in  this  country.  Our  frequent  wars,  in 
which  the  descendants  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  and  Danes  are 
usually  the  first  to  volunteer  and  the  first  to  be  killed,  have 
weakened  them  still  further.  Writers  like  Madison  Grant, 
who  are  influenced  by  the  cult  of  racialism  now  popular 
on  the  Continent,  even  speak  of  '  The  Passing  of  the  Great 
Race  '  as  a  doom  to  which  the  Nordics  must  resign  them- 
selves. Of  the  remaining  two  races,  the  pure  Alpine  seems 
to  be  decidedly  inferior  to  the  Mediterranean  in  intelligence 
and  energy  ;  but  a  large  admixture  of  Alpine  blood  flows 
in  the  veins  of  some  of  the  most  powerful  nations.  The 
vigour  of  the  Germans  is  indeed  a  refutation  of  their 
favourite  theory  that  the  Nordic  race  is  intrinsically 
superior  to  all  others  ;  for  they  themselves  are  not,  like  the 
Scandinavians,  pure  Nordics.  The  Germans  area  mixture 
of  Nordic  and  Alpine  man  ;  the  British  of  Nordic  and 


THE  WHITE  MAN  AND  HIS  RIVALS       211 

Mediterranean.  In  Great  Britain  the  round-headed  man, 
who  was  once  among  us  and  constructed  the  round  barrows 
which  indicate  his  presence,  has  practically  vanished.  His 
physical  characteristics  are  rarely  found  in  these  islands. 

If  we  look  at  a  map  of  the  world  as  it  was  at  the  end 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  about  1480,  we  shall  be  startled  to 
find  how  small  a  part  of  it  was  fully  included  in  the 
European  system.  European  culture  reigned  in  France, 
England,  Germany,  the  Netherlands,  Italy,  Bohemia,  and 
the  greater  part  of  Spain,  from  which,  however,  the  Moors 
had  not  yet  been  finally  expelled.  Russia  was  still  a 
barbarous  country ;  South-Eastern  Europe  had  fallen,  or 
was  soon  to  fall,  under  the  yoke  of  the  Grand  Turk  ; 
Scotland,  Ireland,  Scandinavia,  and  Poland  were  still  on 
the  outskirts  of  civilisation,  and  partially  detached  from 
the  European  system. 

For  a  thousand  years  before  the  beginning  of  the 
modern  period  Europe  had  been  on  the  defensive  against 
Asia.  Three  times  civilisation  had  been  in  imminent 
danger  of  being  submerged  by  a  torrent  of  Asiatic  invaders. 
The  first  irruption  of  Mongols,  in  the  fifth  century,  reached 
France,  and  nearly  overthrew  Roman  civilisation  at 
Chalons.  The  Arabs,  within  a  few  decades  after  their 
emergence  from  the  desert,  struck  down  the  East  Roman 
Empire,  exterminated  the  Nordic  Vandals  in  Africa,  con- 
quered Spain,  invaded  France,  and  even  after  they  had 
begun  to  decline,  drove  the  chivalry  of  Europe  out  of 
Palestine.  The  third  period  of  nomadic  aggression  set 
the  Tartar  on  the  thrones  of  India  and  China,  which  he 
retained  till  within  living  memory,  kept  Russia  in  thraldom 
for  two  hundred  years,  obliterated  the  East  Roman  Empire, 
and  as  late  as  the  seventeenth  century  threatened  Vienna. 
The  destruction  of  civilisation  in  all  its  most  ancient  seats 
has  been  the  work  of  the  Mongol.  It  is  not  true  to  say 
that  he  overthrew  only  decadent  and  feeble  empires. 

Such  was  the  state  of  the  unending  duel  between  West 
and  East,  in  the  period  before  the  great  age  of  discovery. 
On  the  whole,  the  East  had  been  the  successful  aggressor. 
The  West  had  only  once  turned  the  tables  on  a  large  scale, 
in  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great,  who  took  advantage 


212  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

of  a  great  temporary  superiority  in  military  science  to 
conquer  the  home-lands  of  the  Asiatic  beyond  the  borders 
of  India.  The  Roman  Empire  was  only  a  device  to  protect 
the  Mediterranean  enclave,  so  insecurely  guarded  by  moun- 
tain and  river  on  the  north,  so  open  to  nomadic  raiders  in 
Hungary  and  Syria.  The  Mediterranean  peoples,  except 
the  Jews  who  were  themselves  Asiatics,  accepted  the  heavy 
hand  of  Rome  and  did  not  often  rebel ;  they  knew  the 
alternative  too  well. 

The  turning-points  of  world-history  have  generally 
been  military  discoveries.  The  unknown  genius  who 
found  out  that  copper  could  be  hardened  into  a  service- 
able weapon  by  the  admixture  of  a  small  percentage  of 
tin  probably  revolutionised  Europe  in  prehistoric  times. 
The  Altaic  shepherd  on  his  horse  shattered  civilisation 
over  the  greater  part  of  the  Old  World.  The  invention 
of  gunpowder  curbed  his  aggression,  and  for  the  first 
time  gave  civilisation  a  decisive  superiority  over  barbarism 
in  warfare.  But  the  turn  of  the  tide  which  has  now 
brought  nearly  the  whole  world  under  the  political  control 
of  the  European  races  began  with  two  feats  of  naval  enter- 
prise. In  1492  Columbus,  while  seeking  a  western  route 
to  the  East  Indies,  landed  on  one  of  the  Bahama  Islands  ; 
and  two  years  later  Vasco  da  Gama  rounded  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope  and  crossed  the  3nd  an  Ocean  to  Calicut.  The 
blockade  of  Europe  by  the  Moslem  was  broken,  and  the 
Atlantic  period  of  history,  which  to  the  future  historian 
will  be  as  distinct  an  epoch  as  the  Mediterranean  period, 
began.  Almost  simultaneously  with  these  d  scoveries,  the 
Moors  were  finally  driven  from  Spain  ;  the  tide  of  Moslem 
conquest  had  begun  to  ebb  from  its  western  high-water 
mark.  In  1519-1521  the  most  wonderful  of  all  voyages 
brought  the  crew  of  Magelhaes  to  the  Philippines  from 
Patagonia.  From  that  time  the  white  man  has  been  at 
home  on  every  ocean. 

The  ascendancy  of  the  white  man  may  be  dated  from 
these  d  scoveries,  though  the  full  effect  of  them  was  not 
felt  till  the  nineteenth  century.  By  an  amazing  piece  of 
good  fortune,  which  can  never  be  repeated  in  the  history 
of  the  world,  however  many  millennia  remain  during  which 


THE  WHITE  MAN  AND  HIS  RIVALS       213 

it  will  be  inhabited  by  our  species,  the  white  man,  newly 
emancipated  by  the  Renaissance  and  ready  for  new  adven- 
tures, found  a  vast  continent  across  the  Atlantic,  only 
sparsely  peopled  by  a  feeble  race  with  no  effective  weapons, 
waiting  for  his  occupation.  He  was  able  to  populate  a 
great  part  of  this  enormous  area  with  his  own  stock  ;  till 
a  second  stroke  of  luck  opened  to  him,  in  the  nick  of  time, 
the  only  other  large  territories  suitable  for  white  colonisa- 
tion, in  Australasia.  Thus  two  new  continents,  with  an 
area  of  about  17£  million  square  miles,  were  added  to  the 
domains  of  the  European. 

It  was  not,  however,  till  the  industrial  revolution  in  the 
reign  of  George  III  that  the  overwhelming  predominance 
of  the  European  declared  itself.  That  momentous  trans- 
formation of  the  whole  economic  structure  of  European 
society  produced  an  unexampled  increase,  both  in  wealth 
and  numbers.  The  population  of  Europe,  which  in  1801, 
after  the  rapid  growth  had  begun,  was  only  150  nrllions, 
was  about  450  millions  in  1914,  besides  110  million  white 
men  in  America  and  the  British  colonies.  Wealth  in 
England  increased  about  tenfold  between  the  two  great 
wars,  a  striking  comment  on  Wellington's  forecast  in  1832  : 
'  Few  people  will  be  sanguine  enough  to  imagine  that  we 
shall  ever  again  be  as  prosperous  as  we  have  been/  After 
1870,  the  progress  of  Germany  was  even  more  rapid  than 
our  own.  In  North  America  material  expansion  was  on  a 
yet  more  portentous  scale.  The  three  million  colonists  who 
revolted  against  Great  Britain  in  the  reign  of  George  III 
are  now  represented  by  a  nation  of  110  millions,  of  whom  a 
very  large  majority  are  of  white  descent.  More  recently, 
Canada  and  the  Argentine  Republic  have  entered  on  the 
path  of  rapid  growth. 

This  expansion  of  the  Western  Europeans  by  no  means 
exhausts  the  tale  of  aggression.  The  Russians  brought 
under  their  dominion,  and  began  to  colonise,  the  vast 
expanse  of  Northern  Asia  as  far  as  the  Pacific  ;  and 
practically  the  whole  of  Africa,  which  covers  11  million 
square  miles,  was  staked  out  by  rival  white  races  for 
present  or  future  exploitation.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
Great  War,  out  of  the  53  million  square  miles  which 


214  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

(excluding  the  Polar  regions)  constitute  the  land  surface 
of  the  globe,  only  six  million  square  miles  were  not  under 
white  government.  The  exceptions  to  universal  white 
domination  were  China,  Japan,  Tibet,  Siam,  Turkey, 
Afghanistan,  Persia,  Abyssinia,  Liberia,  and  Hayti.  As 
the  result  of  the  Great  War,  Turkey,  Persia,  and  Hayti 
may  almost  be  subtracted  from  the  list.  No  important 
non-European  governments  remain,  except  in  China  and 
Japan. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  till  a  few  years  ago  it  was  assumed 
as  probable  that  the  remaining  Asiatic  Empires  would 
follow  the  same  path  as  India,  and  fall  under  one  or  other 
of  the  European  powers.  Mr.  Meredith  Townsend,  writing 
in  1901,  says:  'So  grand  is  the  prize  [of  Asiatic  trade] 
that  failures  will  not  daunt  the  Europeans,  still  less  alter 
their  conviction.  If  these  movements  follow  historic  lines, 
they  will  recur  for  a  time  upon  a  constantly  ascending 
scale,  each  repulse  eliciting  a  greater  effort,  until  at  last 
Asia,  like  Africa,  is  partitioned,  that  is,  each  section  is 
left  at  the  disposal  of  some  white  people.  If  Europe  can 
avoid  internal  war,  or  war  with  a  much  aggrandised 
America,  she  will  by  A.D.  2000  be  mistress  in  Asia,  and  at 
liberty,  as  her  people  think,  to  enjoy/ 

But  in  1901  the  tide  had  really  begun  to  turn,  and 
Mr.  Townsend  himself  was  one  of  the  first  to  sound 
the  warning.  The  culmination  of  white  ascendancy  may 
almost  be  fixed  at  the  date  of  the  second  Jubilee  of  Queen 
Victoria,  when  the  spectators  of  that  magnificent  pageant 
could  observe  the  contrast  between  the  splendid  physique 
of  the  coloured  troops  in  the  procession  and  the  stunted 
and  unhealthy  appearance  of  the  crowds  who  lined  the 
streets.  The  shock  came  ;n  1904,  when  Russia,  who  with 
the  help  of  France  and  Germany  had  robbed  Japan  of  the 
fruits  of  her  victory  over  China,  extended  covetous  hands 
over  Manchuria  and  threatened  Korea.  The  military 
prestige  of  Russia  at  that  time  stood  very  high,  and 
Europe  was  startled  when  an  Asiatic  people,  poor  and 
relatively  small  in  numbers,  threw  down  the  gauntlet  to 
the  Colossus  of  the  North.  Kuroki's  victory  on  the  Yalu, 
though  due  to  the  blunder  of  a  subordinate  general,  will 


THE  WHITE  MAN  AND  HIS  RIVALS       215 

perhaps  rank  as  one  of  the  turning-points  of  history. 
It  was  followed  by  a  series  of  successes,  both  by  land  and 
sea,  which  amazed  Europe,  and  sent  waves  of  excitement 
and  hope  through  the  entire  continent  of  Asia.  A  French- 
man has  described  the  arrival  of  the  first  batch  of  tall 
Russian  prisoners  at  a  Japanese  port.  The  white  men 
present  consisted  of  French,  Germans,  English,  and 
Americans  ;  but  at  the  sight  of  Europeans  in  the  custody 
of  Asiatics  they  forgot  their  rivalries  ;  a  feeling  of  horror 
went  through  them  all,  and  they  huddled  together  as  if 
they  realised  that  something  uncanny  was  happening 
which  threatened  them  all  alike.  There  was  in  reality 
nothing  mysterious  in  the  Japanese  victories.  A  few 
European  officers  had  seen  their  army  before  the  war,  and 
a  distinguished  Anglo-Indian  had  reported  that  they  were 
'  quite  as  good  as  Gurkhas/  Russia  was  honeycombed 
with  disaffection  and  corruption,  and  was  never  able  to 
bring  her  whole  force  to  bear  in  the  Manchurian  battle- 
fields. But  the  decisive  factor  was  the  German  training 
of  the  Japanese  army,  which  had  learnt  all  that  the  best 
instructors  could  teach,  with  wonderful  thoroughness  and 
ability.  This  was  the  momentous  lesson  of  the  war.  An 
Asiatic  army,  with  equally  good  weapons  and  training, 
is  a  match  for  the  same  number  of  Europeans  ;  and  there 
is  no  part  of  European  military  or  naval  science  which 
the  Asiatic  cannot  readily  master.  In  these  facts  an 
observer  might  well  recognise  the  fate  of  white  ascendancy 
in  Asia. 

Mr.  Stoddard,  in  his  remarkable  book  on  '  The  Rising 
Tide  of  Colour/  has  collected  evidence  of  the  effect  of 
this  campaign  upon  the  Japanese  themselves.  A  temper 
of  arrogant  and  aggressive  imperialism  has  grown  up 
among  them.  The  semi-official  Japanese  Colonial  Journal 
declared  in  the  autumn  of  1914  :  '  To  protect  Chinese 
territory  Japan  is  ready  to  fight  no  matter  what  nation. 
Not  only  will  Japan  try  to  erase  the  ambitions  of  Russia 
and  Germany  ;  it  will  also  do  its  best  to  prevent  England 
and  the  United  States  from  touching  the  Chinese  cake/ 
The  Great  War  seems  to  have  raised  their  ambitions 
still  higher.  Count  Okuma,  in  the  summer  of  1919, 


216  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

recommends  an  alliance    with    Russia,  as   soon   as   the 
Bolsheviks  have  been  suppressed. 

Then,  by  marching  westward  to  the  Balkans,  to  Germany, 
to  France,  to  Italy,  the  greater  part  of  the  world  may  be 
brought  under  our  sway. 

Another  plan  is  to  arm  and  drill  the  Chinese. 

We  have  now  China.  China  is  our  steed !  Far  shall  we 
ride  upon  her  !  So  our  50  millions  becomes  500  millions ;  so 
our  hundreds  of  millions  of  gold  grow  into  billions.  .  .  .  How 
our  strength  has  grown  and  still  grows  !  In  1895  we  conquered 
China ;  Russia,  Germany,  and  France  stole  the  booty  from  us. 
In  ten  years  we  punished  Russia  and  took  back  our  own ;  in 
twenty  we  were  quits  with  Germany ;  with  France  there  is 
no  need  for  haste.  She  knows  that  her  Oriental  possessions 
are  ours  for  the  taking.  As  for  America,  that  fatuous  booby 
with  much  money  and  sentiment  but  no  cohesion  and  no  brains 
of  government,  were  she  alone  we  should  not  need  our  China 
steed.  America  is  an  immense  melon,  ripe  for  the  cutting. 
North  America  will  support  a  thousand  million  people ;  they 
shall  be  Japanese  with  their  slaves. 

So  wrote  a  Japanese  imperialist  in  1916.  Such  rodo- 
montades have  some  importance  as  symptoms  of  a  new 
spirit,  but  otherwise  need  not  be  taken  seriously.  More 
interesting  is  the  growing  consciousness  of  Pan-Asiatic 
sympathy,  which  finds  vent  in  the  cry  '  Asia  for  the 
Asiatics,'  and  in  proposals  to  establish  a  Monroe  doctrine 
for  the  East.  The  revolution  in  China  in  1911  was 
probably  the  beginning  of  a  new  awakening  in  that  vast 
empire.  In  speaking  of  Chinese  stagnation  we  have  often 
forgotten  the  paralysing  effect  of  the  Tartar  domination, 
which  has  only  lately  been  thrown  off.  And  the  new 
China,  in  spite  of  its  hatred  of  Japan,  is  dreaming  of  a 
Pan-Mongolian  alliance.  An  Indo-Japanese  association 
has  existed  for  some  years  ;  its  object  is  certainly  not  to 
maintain  the  British  Raj.  '  Let  us  go  to  India,  where  the 
people  are  looking  for  our  help  !  '  exclaims  Count  Okuma 
in  1907. 

Many  Anglo-Indian  writers,  and  among  them  Mr. 
Townsend,  have  commented  on  the  extreme  slenderness 


THE  WHITE  MAN  AND.  HIS  RIVALS       217 

of  the  threads  by  which  we  hold  India.  '  Above  this 
inconceivable  mass  of  humanity,  governing  all,  protecting 
all,  taxing  all,  rises  what  we  call  the  Empire,  a  corporation 
of  less  than  1500  men,  who  protect  themselves  by  finding 
pay  for  a  minute  white  garrison  of  65,000  men,  one-fifth 
of  the  Roman  legions.  There  is  nothing  else.  To  support 
the  official  world  and  its  garrison  there  is,  except  Indian 
opinion,  absolutely  nothing.  If  the  brown  men  struck 
for  a  week,  the  Empire  would  collapse  like  a  house  of 
cards,  and  every  European  would  be  a  starving  prisoner 
in  his  own  house.  He  could  not  move  or  feed  himself 
or  get  water.  The  Empire  hangs  in  the  air,  supported  by 
nothing  but  the  minute  white  garrison  and  the  unproved 
assumption  that  the  people  of  India  desire  it  to  exist.' 
This  is  forcibly  put ;  but  till  lately  we  might  have  answered 
that  behind  that  small  garrison  lies  the  whole  power  of 
the  British  Empire,  which  could  and  would  be  used  to 
put  down  rebellion.  The  natives,  however,  know  that 
though  this  used  to  be  true,  it  is  now  very  doubtful  whether 
the  masses  in  this  country  would  not  sympathise  with  the 
rebels  and  paralyse  the  efforts  of  the  Government.  It  is 
not  surprising  that  the  growth  of  nationalism  in  India 
seems  to  many  to  portend  the  approaching  end  of  our  rule. 
Another  symptom  to  which  some  of  our  alarmists 
attach  great  importance  is  the  Moslem  revival.  Islam 
is  a  great  civilising  influence  in  Africa,  and  is  spreading 
rapidly  among  the  negroes  of  the  interior.  It  is  also 
true  that  a  very  bitter  feeling  has  been  aroused  among 
educated  Moslems,  in  every  country  where  they  live,  by 
the  destruction  of  the  Mohammedan  kingdoms  and  govern- 
ments. At  the  present  time  there  is  not  a  single  Moslem 
ruler  who  is  really  independent  of  Europe.  The  downfall 
of  that  proud  and  conquering  faith  has  been,  from  the 
political  point  of  view,  almost  complete.  This  humiliation, 
we  are  told,  may  lead  to  a  great  militant  revival.  The 
Moslems  may  put  themselves  at  the  head  of  the  Pan- 
Asiatic  movement.  They  may  convert  Hindus,  Chinamen, 
Japanese,  and  fill  them  with  martial  ardour  for  a  Holy 
War  against  Europe.  This  prediction  does  not  seem  to  be 
very  probable.  There  is  not  much  danger  to  Europe  from 


218  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

the  African  blacks.  In  Arabia  the  swarming  period  has 
passed.  The  Moslems  in  India  have  given  our  armies  less 
trouble  than  other  fighting  races  of  the  peninsula.  And 
it  is  most  unlikely  that  either  China  or  Japan  will  adopt 
the  Mohammedan  creed. 

To  the  present  writer  it  seems  that  the  danger  to  the 
white  races  will  come  only  from  the  yellows  and  the 
browns,  not  from  the  blacks  or  the  reds,  and  that  this 
danger  is  not  at  present  of  a  military  character.  No 
doubt  it  may  become  a  military  danger  in  the  future,  if 
the  whites  persist  in  excluding  the  yellow  and  the  brown 
races  by  violence  from  half-empty  territories  in  which 
they  desire  to  settle.  If  the  white  man  is  determined  to 
throw  his  sword  into  the  scales  of  peaceful  competition, 
his  rivals  will  be  compelled  at  last  to  vindicate  their 
rights  by  war.  But  at  present  the  brown  man  will  not 
take  up  arms  except  to  obtain  self-government  for  him- 
self in  his  home,  and  this  he  is  likely  to  obtain  from  Great 
Britain  without  fighting.  The  Japanese,  in  spite  of  a  few 
fanatical  expansionists,  have  no  wish  to  try  conclusions 
with  Europe  or  America  on  the  field  of  battle,  so  long  as 
they  are  allowed  to  extend  their  influence  on  the  continent 
of  Asia.  A  mass-levy  of  Chinese  for  aggressive  war  is 
not  to  be  thought  of ;  they  have  none  of  the  habits  of 
Mongolian  raiders,  and,  unlike  the  Japanese,  they  do  not 
wish  to  be  soldiers.  The  yellow  peril,  so  far  as  it  exists,  is 
the  peril  of  economic  competition. 

Until  the  European  broke  into  the  isolation  of  Asia, 
the  life  of  its  crowded  population  was  self-contained 
and  self-supporting  to  an  extent  of  which  the  West  has 
no  experience.  '  A  fairly  contented  Indian  peasant  or 
artisan/  says  Mr.  Townsend,  '  usually  seems  to  Western 
eyes  to  possess  no  comforts  at  all.  His  hut  contains 
nothing  on  which  a  British  pawnbroker  would  advance 
three  shillings.  The  owner's  clothing  may  be  worth  five 
shillings  if  he  has  a  winter  garment,  and  his  wife's  perhaps 
ten  shillings  more.  The  children  wear  nothing  at  all. 
The  man  never  sees  or  thinks  about  meat  of  any  kind. 
He  never  dreams  of  buying  alcohol  in  any  shape.  The 
food  of  the  household  costs  about  six  shillings  a  month. 


THE  WHITE  MAN  AND  HIS  RIVALS        219 

He  could  fly  into  the  jungle  with  his  whole  possessions, 
his  farm  or  hut  of  course  excepted,  at  five  minutes'  notice. 
This  method  of  life  extends  from  the  bottom  of  society 
up  through  the  whole  body  of  the  poorer  peasantry  and 
artisans/  '  But  for  the  Europeans,  they  would  import 
nothing  whatever.'  And  yet  these  people  are  not  all  poor. 
Silver  in  India  disappears  as  if  it  fell  through  into  a  hidden 
reservoir.  The  man  in  a  loin-cloth  has  usually  his  hoard, 
often  a  very  large  one,  and  the  Indian  '  poor  '  possess  a 
mass  of  jewels.  It  is  not  poverty,  but  thrift  like  that  of 
the  miser  in  a  comedy,  that  keeps  the  standard  of  comfort 
in  India  at  the  lowest  possible  level.  And  the  result  is 
a  social  freedom  and  absence  of  care  which  the  Hindu 
not  unreasonably  Values  above  all  the  paraphernalia  of 
European  culture.  In  China  the  standard  of  living  is 
rather  higher,  and  in  Japan  higher  still ;  but  even  in  Japan 
the  working  class  lives  almost  incredibly  cheaply,  and, 
apart  from  the  disturbances  caused  by  Western  inter- 
ference, society  is  in  a  state  of  stable  equilibrium.  It  is 
needless  to  say  that  in  skilled  craftsmanship  the  Asiatic 
is  as  good  as  the  European. 

The  introduction  of  Western  industrialism  into  these 
countries  has  had  the  effect  of  increasing  the  population, 
and  of  creating  a  class  of  native  capitalists,  some  of  whom, 
like  the  merchants  of  Singapore  and  the  mill-owners  of 
Osaka,  are  immensely  rich.  It  has  also  brought  the  East 
into  direct  economic  competition  with  the  West.  The 
Japanese,  in  their  haste  to  make  money,  have  tolerated 
a  system  of  labour  in  their  factories  no  better  than  that 
of  England  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  discontent  is  already 
manifest  among  the  wage-earners  ;  but  it  is  certain  that 
the  ratio  of  wages  to  output  all  over  the  East  gives  native 
manufacturers  a  great  advantage  over  the  European  and 
American,  and  that  this  advantage  is  not  likely  to 
disappear. 

All  who  have  had  the  opportunity  of  observing  the 
Asiatic  at  work  seem  to  agree  that  economically  he  is 
greatly  superior  to  the  European.  Many  years  ago  Mr. 
Kipling,  after  a  day  or  two  at  Canton,  records  the  horror 
which  overpowered  him  at  the  deadly  efficiency  of  the 


220  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

Chinese.  '  Soon  there  will  be  no  more  white  men,  but  only 
yellow  men  with  black  hearts  ' — the  '  black  hearts  '  were 
perhaps  the  result  of  witnessing  a  Chinese  execution.  Mr. 
Stoddard  explains  the  cause  of  this  efficiency  in  graphic 
language  :  '  Winnowed  by  ages  of  grim  elimination  in  a 
land  populated  to  the  uttermost  limits  of  subsistence,  the 
Chinese  race  is  selected  as  no  other  for  survival  under 
the  fiercest  conditions  of  economic  stress.  At  home  the 
average  Chinese  lives  his  whole  life  literally  within  a 
hand's  breadth  of  starvation.  Accordingly,  when  removed 
to  the  easier  environment  of  other  lands,  the  Chinaman 
brings  with  him  a  working  capacity  which  simply  appals 
his  competitors/  That  urbane  Celestial,  Doctor  Wu-Tmg- 
Fang,  well  says  of  his  own  people  : 

Experience  proves  that  the  Chinese  as  all-round  labourers 
can  easily  out-distance  all  competitors.  They  are  industrious, 
intelligent,  and  orderly.  They  can  work  under  conditions  that 
would  kill  a  man  of  less  hardy  race ;  in  heat  that  would  kill  a 
salamander,  or  in  cold  that  would  please  a  polar  bear,  sustain- 
ing their  energies  through  long  hours  of  unremitting  toil  with 
only  a  few  bowls  of  rice. 

Professor  C.  H.  Pearson  bears  the  same  testimony  : 

Flexible  as  Jews,  they  can  thrive  on  the  mountain  plateaux 
of  Tibet  and  under  the  sun  of  Singapore ;  more  versatile  even 
than  Jews,  they  are  excellent  labourers,  and  not  without  merit 
as  soldiers  and  sailors ;  while  they  have  a  capacity  for  trade 
which  no  other  nation  of  the  East  possesses.  They  do  not  need 
even  the  accident  of  a  man  of  genius  to  develop  their  magnifi- 
cent future. 

Lafcadio  Hearn  speaks  of  them  as 

a  people  of  hundreds  of  millions  disciplined  for  thousands  of 
years  to  the  most  untiring  industry  and  the  most  self-denying 
thrift,  under  conditions  which  would  mean  worse  than  death 
for  our  working  masses — a  people,  in  short,  quite  content  to 
strive  to  the  uttermost  in  exchange  for  the  simple  privilege 
of  life. 

An  American,  Mr.  Clarence  Poe,  writes  in  1911  : 

We  must  face  in  ever-increasing  degree  the  rivalry  of 
awakening  peoples  who  are  strong  with  the  strength  which 


THE  WHITE  MAN  AND  HIS  RIVALS      221 

comes  from  poverty  and  hardship,  and  who  have  set  them- 
selves to  master  and  apply  all  our  secrets  in  the  coming  world- 
struggle  for  industrial  supremacy  and  for  racial  readjustment. 

Finally,  to  quote  Mr.  Stoddard  again  : 

When  the  enormous  outward  thrust  of  coloured  population- 
pressure  bursts  into  a  white  land,  it  cannot  let  live,  but  auto- 
matically crushes  the  white  man  out — first  the  white  labourer, 
then  the  white  merchant,  lastly  the  white  aristocrat,  until  every 
vestige  of  white  has  gone  from  that  land  for  ever.  .  .  .  No- 
where, absolutely  nowhere,  can  white  labour  compete  on  equal 
terms  with  coloured  immigrant  labour. 

These  warnings  of  the  grim  struggle  which  awaits  the 
white  races  are  confirmed  by  several  concrete  examples. 
In  Hawaii  the  immigrants  have  been  mainly  Japanese, 
who  are  less  formidable  than  the  Chinese,  as  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  Japan  has  lately  been  compelled  to  pass 
laws  for  the  exclusion  of  Chinese  labour.  Yet  in  those 
islands  the  Hawaiian  fisherman  and  the  American  mechanic 
and  shopkeeper  have  alike  been  pushed  out  of  employ- 
ment. The  Polynesian  abor:g:nes  are  wither'ng  away ;  the 
Americans  are  encysted  as  a  small  and  dwindling  aristo- 
cracy. In  1917,  5000  Japanese  were  born,  and  only  295 
Americans.  In  Mauritius  a  century  ago  one-third  of  the 
population  were  whites,  mostly  French.  '  To-day  the 
fabled  land  of  Paul  and  Virginia  is  becoming  a  bit  of 
Hindustan,  with  a  Chinese  fringe.'  Natal,  which  has 
recently  passed  an  Exclusion  Act,  is  '  a  country  of  white 
landlords  and  supervisors  controlling  a  horde  of  Asiatics. 
The  working-class  white  population  has  to  go.' 1 

These  testimonies,  which  might  easily  be  multiplied, 
and  which  are  not  contradicted,  are  sufficient  to  prove 
that  under  a  regime  of  peace,  free  trade,  and  unrestricted 
migration  the  coloured  races  would  outwork,  underlive, 
and  eventually  exterminate  the  whites.  The  importance  of 
this  fact  cannot  be  exaggerated.  The  result  of  the  European, 
American,  and  Australian  labour  movement  has  been  to 
produce  a  type  of  working-man  who  but  for  protection 
in  its  extremest  form,  the  prohibition  of  immigration, 

1  Neame,  Oriental  Labour  in  South  Africa. 


222  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

would  soon  be  swept  out  of  existence.  And  this  pro- 
tection rests  entirely  on  armed  force;  in  the  last  resort, 
on  war.  It  is  useless  to  turn  away  from  the  facts,  however 
unwelcome  they  may  be  to  our  socialists  and  pacifists. 
The  abolition  of  war,  and  the  establishment  of  a  League  to 
secure  justice  and  equality  of  treatment  for  all  nations, 
would  seal  the  doom  of  the  white  labourer,  such  as  he  has 
made  himself.  There  was  a  time  when  we  went  to  war  to 
compel  the  Chinese  to  trade  with  us,  and  when  we  ruined 
a  flourishing  Indian  trade  by  the  competition  of  Lancashire 
cotton.  That  was  the  period  which  it  is  the  fashion  to 
decry  as  a  period  of  ruthless  greed  and  exploitation.  The 
working-man  has  brought  that  period  to  an  end.  To-day 
he  is  dreaming  of  fresh  rewards,  doles,  and  privileges 
which  are  to  make  the  white  countries  a  paradise  for  his 
class.  And  all  the  time  he  is  living  on  sufferance,  behind  an 
artificial  dyke  of  ironclads  and  bayonets,  on  the  other  side 
of  which  is  a  mass  of  far  more  efficient  labour,  which  would 
swallow  him  up  in  a  generation  if  the  barriers  were  removed. 
The  American  books  from  which  quotations  have  been 
made  are  written  with  the  object  of  urging  a  policy  of 
absolute  exclusion.  This  is  the  remedy,  and  the  only 
remedy,  which  finds  favour  in  the  United  States,  in 
British  Columbia,  in  Australia,  and  in  South  Africa. 
There  is  probably  no  question  on  which  the  people  of 
those  countries  are  so  nearly  unanimous.  '  The  White 
Australia  doctrine/  says  one  Australian  writer,  '  is  based 
on  the  necessity  for  choosing  between  national  existence 
and  suicide.'  Another  says,  '  Australians  of  all  classes 
and  political  affiliations  regard  the  [exclusion]  policy 
much  as  Americans  regard  the  Constitution.'  '  Take 
down  the  barriers  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  and  there  would 
be  ten  million  Hindus  in  Canada  in  ten  years.'  A  Cali- 
fornian  echoes  this  Canadian  protest :  '  The  multitudes 
of  Asia  are  awake  after  their  long  sleep,  as  the  multitudes 
of  Europe  were  when  our  present  flood  of  immigration 
began.  We  know  what  would  happen  on  the  Asiatic  side, 
by  what  did  happen  on  the  European  side.  Against 
Asiatic  immigration  we  could  not  survive.'  And  so  a 
policy,  which  is  rather  time-discredited  than  time-honoured, 


THE  WHITE  MAN  AND  HIS  RIVALS        223 

is  to  be  adopted,  to  preserve  the  white  man  in  his  half- 
empty  Garden  of  Eden.  As  the  Babylonians  built  the 
so-called  Median  Wall  to  keep  out  the  roving  nomads 
from  the  North,  as  the  Chinese  built  their  wonderful 
Great  Wall  to  keep  out  the  Tartars,  as  the  Romans  carried 
a  line  of  fortifications  from  Newcastle  to  the  Solway,  so 
the  white  man  is  to  erect  a  permanent  barrier  to  exclude 
the  Asiatic.  All  the  under-populated  countries  are  in  the 
hands  of  the  whites,  and  the  overflow  of  China,  Japan,  and 
India  is  never  to  be  allowed  to  reach  them. 

Is  it  likely  that  this  policy  will  be  successful  ?  To 
begin  with,  it  has  all  the  well-known  drawbacks  of  a 
protective  system.  In  the  protected  countries  the  cost 
of  living  is  forced  up,  and  the  consumer  is  deprived  of  the 
advantage  which  he  might  have  gained  from  competition, 
in  all  trades  where  the  home  labourer  can  determine 
prices.  Under  this  system  the  cost  of  labour  has  become 
so  high  that  much  of  the  wealth  in  the  protected  countries 
remains  undeveloped.  In  the  State  of  New  York,  and  in 
other  parts  of  the  Union,  the  visitor  is  surprised  to  see 
many  derelict  farms.  The  explanation  is  that  the  cost  of 
labour  is  so  great  that  it  pays  to  cultivate  only  the  best 
land.  Further  west,  magnificent  crops  of  fruit  rot  on  the 
trees  ;  there  is  no  one  to  pick  them.  The  slow  growth  of 
Australia  and  New  Zealand  is  the  result  of  the  absence  of 
cheap  labour.  In  our  own  country  an  impasse  has  plainly 
been  reached.  Unemployment  is  increasing,  and  must 
increase  much  further.  No  houses  can  be  built  for  rents 
which  the  occupants  could  pay.  The  high  cost  of  coal 
impoverishes  the  population  and  cripples  all  industries. 
The  Government  has  no  remedy  except  to  endow  the 
unemployed  out  of  the  taxes  and  to  build  houses  out  of  the 
rates  ;  though  it  must  be  clear  even  to  the  least  intelligent 
member  of  the  House  of  Commons  that  every  five  pounds 
so  spent  drives  another  workman  out  of  employment  for 
a  week.  Quite  apart  from  Asiatic  competition,  our  social 
order  is  threatened  with  bankruptcy.  By  a  well-known 
law  of  nature,  a  class  shielded  from  healthy  competition 
becomes  more  and  more  inefficient,  and  less  able  to  stand 
against  its  rivals  when  the  protecting  barriers  fail. 


224  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

If  the  conditions  in  the  white  countries  become  un- 
favourable to  enterprise,  we  may  be  sure  that  both  capital 
and  business  ability  will  be  transferred  to  the  economically 
strong  countries.  Asia  will  be  industrialised  ;  India  and 
China  and  Japan  will  be  full  of  factories,  equipped  with 
all  the  latest  improvements,  and  under  skilled  management, 
which  at  first  will  be  frequently  white.  Wealth  will  be 
so  abundant  in  Asia  that  the  Governments  will  be  able 
without  difficulty  to  maintain  fleets  and  armies  large 
enough  to  protect  their  own  interests,  and  to  exact  repara- 
tion for  any  transgressions  of  international  law  by  the 
whites.  Only  a  wealthy  country  can  be  powerful  by  sea  ; 
and  a  nation  which  has  lost  most  of  its  foreign  trade  will 
not  think  it  worth  while  to  bid  for  naval  supremacy.  The 
policy  of  exclusion  will,  therefore,  be  powerless  to  prevent 
those  races  which  possess  economic  superiority  from  in- 
creasing in  wealth  and  then  in  military  power. 

The  suicidal  war  which  devastated  the  world  of  the 
white  man  for  four  years  will  probably  be  found  to  have 
produced  its  chief  results,  not  in  altering  the  balance  of 
power  in  Europe,  but  in  precipitating  certain  changes 
which  were  coming  about  slowly  during  the  peace.  The 
period  which  these  changes  would  naturally  have  occupied 
was  shortened  by  perhaps  fifty  years.  The  first  of  these 
is  the  change  in  the  relation  of  wages  to  output,  which 
has  been  suddenly  and  enormously  altered  to  the  detriment 
of  the  consumer.  The  second  change  is  the  transference 
of  political  and  financial  supremacy  from  Europe  to  the 
United  States,  a  change  which  was  no  doubt  bound  to 
occur  within  half  a  century,  since  America  has  a  decisive 
advantage  in  her  geographical  position,  equally  adapted 
for  the  Pacific  and  the  Atlantic  trade.  The  present 
writer,  when  he  was  in  Berlin  two  or  three  years  before 
the  war,  had  a  conversation  with  a  leading  German 
publicist,  and  endeavoured  to  impress  upon  him  that  in 
the  event  of  a  European  war,  the  American  would  in- 
evitably be  the  tertius  gaudens.  The  argument,  though 
absolutely  sound,  as  the  event  has  proved,  was  not  very 
well  received.  Europe  has  thrown  away  her  last  half- 
century  of  primacy.  The  third  change  is  that  to  which 


THE  WHITE  MAN  AND  HIS  RIVALS        225 

this  article  is  directed.  The  peril  from  the  coloured  races, 
which  before  the  war  loomed  in  the  distance,  is  now  of 
immediate  urgency.  The  white  peoples,  exhausted  and 
crippled  by  debt,  will  be  less  able  to  compete  with  Asia. 

The  policy  of  exclusion,  however,  must  be  considered 
as  it  affects  the  white  nations  separately,  for  the  problem 
is  not  the  same  all  over  the  world.  In  North  America 
it  is  probable  that  the  immigration  of  Chinese,  Japanese, 
and  Indians  may  be  successfully  resisted.  Employers  of 
labour  may  complain  with  good  reason  that  they  are 
unable  to  develop  their  businesses ;  but  the  labour  vote 
will  be  far  too  strong  for  them.  The  Americans  are 
beginning  to  realise  that  their  promiscuous  hospitality 
to  immigrants,  even  from  Europe,  has  seriously  impaired 
the  racial  integrity  of  their  nation,  and  has  been  accom- 
panied by  a  great  reduction  in  the  birth-rate  of  the  old 
Americans  of  Anglo-Saxon  and  Dutch  stock.  Only  in 
the  South,  where  the  blacks  are  kept  in  a  semi-servile 
condition,  are  the  white  families  still  large.  The  new 
policy,  it  is  plain,  will  be  one  of  '  America  for  the 
Americans  '  ;  Europeans  as  well  as  Asiatics  will  find  the 
land  of  freedom  hard  to  enter.  But  Central  and  South 
America  are  not  likely  to  remain  barred  to  the  yellow  race. 
The  Latin  Americans  have  very  little  colour  prejudice  ; 
and  there  is  a  far-away  kinship  between  the  Mongols 
and  the  so-called  red  men,  which  makes  racial  admixture 
between  them  by  no  means  repugnant.  Central  and 
South  America  are  potentially  very  rich  ;  and  the  greater 
part  of  the  continent  is  too  hot  for  Europeans,  but  not  for 
Chinese.  The  Germans  in  South  Brazil  have  lost  their 
vigour  ;  like  our  countrymen  in  South  Africa,  they  sit 
under  a  tree  and  hire  a  coloured  man  to  work  for  them. 
But  the  Chinaman  can  work  in  worse  climates  than  that  of 
South  Brazil. 

The  Australians,  as  we  have  already  seen  from  their 
own  writings,  are  fully  aware  that  for  them  exclusion 
of  the  Asiatic  is  a  matter  of  life  and  death.  But  will 
five  million  white  men  be  able  to  guard  an  empty  continent, 
nearly  as  large  as  the  United  States  ?  They  might  save 


226  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

themselves  by  rescinding  trade- union  regulations,  and 
offering  homes  on  easy  terms  to  competent  workmen  and 
their  families  from  all  parts  of  Europe.  The  resources 
of  the  country  would  then  be  rapidly  developed,  and  the 
population  might  in  a  few  years  be  numerous  enough  to 
keep  the  invader  out.  But  no  policy  of  this  kind  is  to 
be  expected.  The  Australian  working-man  will  vote  for 
keeping  his  prize  to  himself,  till  the  dykes  burst.  As  for 
the  other  great  islands  near  South-East  Asia,  it  is  almost 
certain  that  they  will  become  Chinese.  It  is  also  probable 
that  this  race  will  spread  over  Central  Asia,  where  there 
are  said  to  be  large  tracts  of  fairly  good  land  still  nearly 
empty. 

In  South  Africa  the  danger  is  more  from  the  Kaffir 
than  from  the  East  Indian  or  Chinaman.  The  Bantus 
are  a  fine  race,  and  it  has  yet  to  be  proved  that  they  are 
incapable  of  civilisation.  The  African  has  at  all  times 
and  in  all  places,  except  in  our  West  Indies,  met  with 
abominable  treatment.  Everything  has  been  done  to 
degrade  him  and  ruin  his  character.  Mr.  Stephen 
Graham's  book  about  '  The  Children  of  the  Slaves  '  in 
the  Southern  States  of  the  American  Union  makes  an 
Englishman's  blood  boil.  It  is  not  easy  to  forget  the 
horrible  photograph  of  a  negro  burnt  alive  by  a  crowd 
of  white  savages.  Even  in  South  Africa  the  Kaffir  has 
much  to  complain  of ;  and  the  evidence  of  those  who 
know  the  country  is  that  the  relations  between  the  two 
races  are  growing  worse  instead  of  better.  The  future 
of  that  Dominion  is  problematical ;  but  it  does  not  seem 
likely  that  it  will  ever  be  a  white  man's  country  like  Canada 
or  New  Zealand. 

For  us  at  home  the  problem  is  different.  We  are 
not  threatened  by  coloured  immigration,  and  we  have 
nothing  to  fear  from  the  armies  and  fleets  of  Asia.  But 
we  depend  for  our  very  existence  on  our  for  ign  trade — 
that  is  to  say,  on  being  able  to  offer  our  manufactures  to 
other  nations  at  a  price  which  they  are  willing  to  accept. 
In  return  for  these  manufactures  we  import  the  food  on 
which  we  live.  If  we  can  no  longer  sell  them,  we  shall 
get  no  food,  and  we  shall  starve.  This  is  a  childishly 


THE  WHITE  MAN  AND  HIS  RIVALS        227 

simple  proposition,  but  a  large  section  of  our  politicians 
and  social  reformers  choose  to  ignore  it.  A  double  move- 
ment, combining  decrease  in  production  with  increase  in 
its  cost,  has  been  progressing  rapidly,  and  many  seem 
to  view  it  with  complacency.  Its  effects  would  have 
shown  themselves  earlier  but  for  the  disorganisation  of 
industrial  life  on  the  Continent.  The  crash  of  our  factitious 
prosperity  has  now  begun  ;  the  war-fortunes  are  melting 
away  like  snow. 

The  criticism  may  be  made  that  these  arguments 
prove  too  much.  If  the  cheaper  races  must  always  out- 
work and  underlive  the  more  expensive,  why  have  China 
and  India  remained  poor  ;  and  what  is  the  use  of  warning 
us  against  a  fate  which  we  cannot  possibly  escape,  since 
we  cannot  lower  our  standard  to  that  of  the  Chinese  or 
the  Hindus  ?  The  answer  to  the  former  objection  is  not 
difficult.  Agricultural  Asia  is  over-populated  and  can  only 
just  feed  itself.  The  low  standard  of  living  has  increased 
the  population  to  the  margin  at  which  existence  is  just 
possible.  Industry  on  the  European  system  of  mass- 
production  is  still  in  its  infancy  in  Asia  ;  where  it  exists, 
it  is  very  profitable.  It  is  said  that  at  the  present  time 
Japan,  which  till  lately  was  a  very  poor  country,  contains 
as  many  millionaires,  in  proportion  to  its  population,  as 
the  United  States.  The  second  objection — that  if  our 
premisses  are  true,  no  efforts  on  our  part  can  avert  the 
ruin  of  the  white  races — is  not  altogether  sound.  The 
industrialisation  of  Asia  will  undoubtedly  give  rise  to 
the  same  labour  difficulties  which  cripple  our  home  in- 
dustries. The  wages  of  the  Indian  and  Chinese  operative 
will  rise.  They  will  certainly  not  rise  sufficiently  to 
prevent  Asiatic  merchants  from  capturing  our  markets 
if  we  go  on  as  we  are  doing  ;  but  the  case  of  British  trade 
is  not  yet  hopeless.  A  great  increase  of  production,  and 
a  cessation  of  strikes,  with  a  Government  pledged  to 
peace,  free  trade,  and  drastic  retrenchment,  would  restore 
confidence  and  give  the  country  a  chance  of  returning  to 
sound  business  principles.  We  still  have  some  advantages, 
including  our  coal,  and  a  geographical  position  which, 


228  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

though  no  longer  the  best,  is  a  good  one.  But  the  country 
must  learn  that  our  industry  must  henceforth  be  con- 
ducted under  unprivileged  conditions.  The  relation  of 
wages  to  output  must  be  approximately  that  which  pre- 
vails in  the  world  at  large.  Moreover,  as  our  period  of 
economic  expansion  is  probably  over,  we  cannot  provide 
for  a  larger  population  than  we  have  at  present.  The 
birth-rate  must  match  the  death-rate,  as  it  does  in  France. 
It  is  probable  indeed  that  we  shall  not  be  able  to  employ 
or  to  feed  the  whole  48  millions  who  now  inhabit  these 
islands.  A  gradual  reduction  in  our  numbers,  by  emigra- 
tion or  by  birth-control,  might  save  much  misery. 

Behind  the  problem  of  our  own  future  rises  the  great 
question  whether  any  nation  which  aims  at  being  a 
working-man's  paradise  can  long  flourish.  Civilisation 
hitherto  has  always  been  based  on  great  inequality.  It 
has  been  the  culture  of  a  limited  class,  which  has  given 
its  character  to  the  national  life,  but  has  not  attempted 
to  raise  the  whole  people  to  the  same  level.  Some  civilisa- 
tions have  decayed  because  the  privileged  class,  obeying 
a  law  which  seems  to  be  almost  invariable,  have  died 
out,  and  the  masses  have  been  unable  to  perpetuate  a 
culture  which  they  never  shared.  Civilisation,  therefore, 
based  on  inequality,  has  always  been  insecure  ;  and  there 
are  other  reasons  why  the  ideal  of  equality,  or  at  least 
of  equal  opportunity,  is  attractive  to  many.  But  a 
universal  high  standard  of  living  seems  to  be  impossible 
in  an  industrial  community.  It  has  been  suggested  that 
what  Aristotle  called  inanimate  instruments  (as  distin- 
guished from  the  animate  instruments — the  slaves)  may 
take  the  place  of  the  poorly  paid  labourer.  In  other  words, 
we  may  all  be  comfortable  when  we  have  machines  to  work 
for  us.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  machines  dis- 
place hand-labour ;  so  that  the  proposed  improvements 
would  reduce  the  number  of  men  and  women  for  whom 
employment  could  be  found.  Further,  the  extended  use 
of  machinery  means  in  practice  that  every  worker  is  him- 
self turned  into  a  cog  in  a  machine.  His  working  life 
consists  in  repeating,  thousands  of  times  a  day,  some 
simple  movement,  like  turning  a  screw.  The  human 


THE  WHITE  MAN  AND  HIS  RIVALS       229 

organism  is  not  adapted  to  this  kind  of  work  ;  it  is  hateful 
and  injurious.  All  joy  in  labour,  all  the  pleasure  of  crea- 
tion, all  art  and  ingenuity,  are  killed  by  such  excessive 
mechanisation.  Machinery  will  no  doubt  perform  many 
unpleasant  tasks  for  us,  as  it  does  already  ;  but  it  will  not 
enable  the  whole  population  to  live  in  comfortable  villas, 
and  to  eat  as  much  expensive  food  as  they  desire.  Least 
of  all  will  this  be  possible  in  our  densely  populated  island, 
for  reasons  which  have  already  been  stated. 

Lastly,  have  we  any  right  to  assume  that  the  supremacy 
of  the  Asiatic  would  be  a  retrograde  step  in  the  history  of 
the  world  ?  The  Americans  do  assume  it  as  unquestion- 
able ;  but  they  seldom  condescend  to  give  their  reasOns. 
There  is  no  physical  or  intellectual  inferiority  in  the  yellow 
races — that  is  certain  ;  and  the  moral  inferiority  of  the 
Asiatic  consists  chiefly  in  a  callousness  about  bearing  and 
inflicting  suffering,  which  the  Orientals  themselves  admit. 
An  Indian  pundit  said  to  Mr.  Townsend :  '  The  substantial 
difference  between  the  English  and  us  is  not  intellectual 
at  all.  We  are  the  brighter,  if  anything  ;  but  you  have 
pity  (doya),  and  we  have  it  not.'  An  English  officer  told 
me  that  he  once  stood  over  the  mangled  body  of  a  Chinaman 
who  had  met  with  a  violent  death.  Noticing,  as  he 
thought,  some  sign  of  compassion  on  the  stolid  face  of  the 
dead  man's  companion,  he  said  :  '  This  is  a  sad  sight.' 
'  Yes,'  said  the  Celestial  :  '  he  owed  me  ten  cents  ' !  But 
there  are  other  virtues  in  which  the  Oriental  is  our  superior  ; 
the  Japanese,  especially,  have  achieved  the  boast  of 
Pericles,  that  the  Athenians  are  lovers  of  beauty  com- 
bined with  plain  living,  better  than  any  other  modern 
people.  It  is  the  plain  living  which  sticks  in  the  throat 
of  the  American  ;  but  it  need  not  stick  in  ours.  Probably 
the  Eastern  races  will  force  upon  us  a  general  simplifica- 
tion of  life,  which  will  give  us  a  social  freedom  to  which 
we  have  long  been  strangers.  A  Russian — one  of  the 
survivors  of  the  intelligentsia  who  have  escaped  from  the 
Terror — has  lately  suggested  that  the  psychological  cause 
of  the  war  is  that  people  were  '  stifling  under  the  burden 
of  civilisation,'  compelled  to  make,  to  buy,  and  to  consume 
countless  unnecessary  articles  which  were  '  of  use  neither 


250  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

to  him  who  made  them  nor  to  him  who  sold  them,  nor 
even  to  him  who  bought  them.'  To  simplify  life  by 
abolishing  irrational  and  unnecessary  expenditure  would 
increase  our  health  and  happiness,  and  would  perhaps 
enable  us  to  hold  our  own  against  the  races  of  the 
East.  A  gradual  assimilation  in  the  modes  of  life  of 
all  civilised  countries  is  to  be  expected.  There  will  be  no 
more  hermit  kingdoms.  The  Asiatic  will  have  more  wants  ; 
the  European  and  American  must  be  content  with  fewer. 
The  chief  danger  to  the  white  man  arises  from  his  arrogant 
contempt  for  other  races,  a  contempt  which  in  some  lands 
is  mixed  with  fear  and  hatred,  and  which  has  provoked 
fear  and  hatred  in  return.  Europeans  have  recently 
enjoyed  an  unfair  advantage  over  their  rivals,  which  they 
have  abused  without  the  slightest  regard  for  justice  and 
fair  play.  This  advantage  will  not  be  theirs  in  the  future  : 
they  will  have  to  compete  on  equal  terms  with  nations 
schooled  by  adversity  and  winnowed  by  the  hard  struggle 
for  existence.  Victory  will  go  to  the  races  which  are 
best  equipped  for  that  kind  of  competition  ;  and  it  may 
well  be  that  a  modified  caste  system,  not  rigid,  as  in  India, 
but  such  as  prevailed  till  lately  in  Europe,  may  prove  to 
have  a  greater  survival  value  than  either  democracy  or 
socialism,  which  in  its  present  form  desires  to  keep  the 
whole  population  as  nearly  as  possible  on  the  same  level. 
An  English  poet  has  given  his  opinion  that  fifty  years  of 
Europe  are  better  than  a  cycle  of  Cathay.  But  the  future 
may  show  that  the  European  is  a  good  sprinter  and  a  bad 
stayer.  It  is  better  to  be  a  hare  than  a  tortoise  ;  but  it  is 
better  to  be  a  live  tortoise  than  a  dead  hare. 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  CIVILISATION 

THE  social  outlook  of  the  man  of  science  is  very  different 
from  that  of  the  politician,  and  hardly  less  from  that  of 
the  average  social  reformer.  The  biologist  thinks  in 
centuries  and  millennia  ;  he  looks  before  and  after  in  a 
way  which  would  ruin  a  politician,  who  is  acute  enough 
in  predicting  which  way  the  popular  breeze  will  blow 
to-morrow,  but  knows  and  cares  little  what  will  happen 
in  the  next  generation.  The  man  of  science  also  believes 
that  we  can  only  conquer  nature  by  obeying  her  ;  he 
does  not  think  that  human  nature  is  likely  to  change 
appreciably  even  in  a  thousand  years,  except  by  the 
operation  of  natural  selection  or  counter-selection,  or  if 
he  is  an  optimist,  by  rational  selection  ;  he  certainly 
does  not  believe  that  '  where  God  sends  mouths  He  sends 
meat,'  nor  that  vicarious  charity  will  cover  a  multitude 
of  economic  sins.  We  breathe  a  different  atmosphere 
when  we  leave  the  watchful  observers  of  the  jumping  cat, 
and  consult  the  men  who  patiently  interrogate  the  great 
Sphinx — the  '  elemental  laws  '  which,  as  Walt  Whitman 
says,  '  never  apologise,'  the  silent  goddess  on  whose  knees 
are  the  fates  of  nations,  races,  and  species,  and  who  makes 
them  or  breaks  them  impartially,  according  to  their  skill 
in  reading  her  riddles,  or  their  wilfulness  in  disregarding 
her  unspoken  but  not  unacted  warnings.  Science  has 
not  yet  come  to  its  own  in  forming  the  beliefs  and  practices 
of  mankind,  because  it  has  been  too  much  excluded  from 
politics  and  too  much  repressed  by  religion.  It  is  the 
purgatory  of  religion  and  politics  alike,  exacting  expiation 
for  every  sin  against  truth  and  every  dishonest  concession 
to  passion  or  prejudice.  The  futile  attempts  of  the  last 

231 


232  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

century  to  '  reconcile  '  it  with  ecclesiastical  tradition  have 
died  down.  Science  has  captured  a  number  of  indefensible 
outworks,  and  religion  is  not  a  pin  the  worse.  Science 
was  materialistic  while  battling  with  superstition  ;  since 
it  has  won  its  freedom  it  has  been  willing  to  learn  much 
from  idealistic  philosophy.  The  war  of  the  twentieth 
century  is  no  longer  between  science  and  religion ;  it  is 
between  science  and  the  irrational  forces  which  make 
for  social  degeneracy  and  disintegration.  It  is  not  for 
nothing  that  revolutionists  speak  with  hatred  or  distrust 
of  '  intellectuals.'  For  they  themselves  are  in  revolt,  not 
merely  against  the  existing  social  order,  but  against 
economic  law,  and  against  society  as  an  organic  growth, 
with  its  roots  in  the  past. 

And  yet  the  prevailing  tone  and  temper  of  public  opinion 
have  always  reacted  upon  the  progress  and  direction  of 
scientific  discovery.  We  have  to  admit  that  even  the 
most  independent  thinker  is  the  child  of  his  age.  The 
dreams  of  human  perfectibility  which  intoxicated  the 
French  towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  gave  a 
stimulus  to  doctrines  of  evolution  as  the  law  of  nature  ; 
but  while  la  carrier e  ouverte  aux  talents  was  reflected  in 
the  theory  of  Lamarck,  the  competitive  industrialism 
of  the  next  generation  found  its  supposed  justification  in 
Darwin's  doctrine  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  At  the 
present  day,  the  popular  faith  that  everything  is  possible 
to  organised  efiort  seems  to  correspond  to  the  physics  of 
energy,  and  it  may  be  that  the  political  and  economic 
revolt  against  the  belief  in  fixed  laws  of  nature  is  more 
than  accidentally  synchronous  with  the  theories  of  Bergson 
and  his  school.  Few  men  free  themselves  from  prejudices 
coming  from  without ;  none  perhaps  from  prejudices 
which  have  their  source  within.  We  never  become  in- 
dependent of  our  temperament ;  and  group-influences, 
however  we  may  account  for  them,  seem  to  modify  in- 
dividual temperament  in  each  generation,  probably  by 
constantly  directing  attention  to  some  one  aspect  of 
experience. 

Two  recent  books  on  scientific  sociology,  which  re- 
semble each  other  in  the  ability  of  their  authors,  in  their 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  CIVILISATION          233 

wide  knowledge  of  biology  and  kindred  sciences,  and 
in  their  general  plan  of  treatment,  may  profitably  be 
considered  side  by  side,  the  more  so  as  their  conclusions 
are  strongly  opposed  to  each  other.  One  is  Dr.  Miiller 
Lyer's  '  History  of  Social  Development '  (Phasen  der 
Kultur),  written  before  the  war  and  now  translated  into 
English  ;  the  other  is  Dr.  Austin  Freeman's  '  Social  Decay 
and  Regeneration,'  published  in  1921  with  an  introduction 
by  Mr.  Havelock  Ellis,  himself  a  notable  contributor  to 
the  scientific  study  of  social  problems. 

Dr.  Miiller  Lyer  contemplates  the  species  to  which 
we  belong  as  rising  from  insignificant  beginnings  to  more 
and  more  elevated  forms  of  life.  At  first,  of  course,  man 
knew  nothing  of  the  marvellous  destiny  reserved  for  him  ; 
but  a  great  moment  arrived  when  a  knowledge  of  the 
path  which  he  was  treading  crossed  the  threshold  of  his 
consciousness.  From  this  moment  instinctive  striving 
began  to  be  transformed  into  conscious  and  purposive 
action.  He  cherished  hopes  of  being  able  to  control  the 
movement  of  his  own  progress.  But  this  control  has  not 
yet  been  achieved,  and  cannot  be  ours  till  we  understand 
the  course  of  social  evolution,  which  has  passed  through 
many  successive  phases.  These  lines  of  direction  can  be 
traced,  and  they  must  serve  us  as  signposts  for  the  future. 
Dr.  Lyer  attempts  to  interpret  history  in  this  manner. 
His  subject  comprises  economic  development,  the  family, 
the  State,  the  human  intellect,  ethics,  justice,  and  art. 

Culture,  he  says,  is  a  progressive  movement,  which  we 
can  trace  back  to  its  beginnings  in  the  evolution  of  man 
from  lower  forms.  The  discovery  of  speech,  of  the  way 
to  produce  fire,  and  of  tools,  are  among  the  most  important 
points  of  new  departure.  The  use  of  tools  increases 
steadily  as  man  moves  from  the  age  of  stone  to  that  of 
copper  and  bronze,  and  thence  to  iron.  The  age  of  iron 
culminated  in  the  machine-civilisation  of  our  own  day, 
which  began  in  this  country  about  150  years  ago,  when  a 
series  of  discoveries  ushered  in  the  industrial  revolution. 
All  purely  mechanical  labour  is  now  in  process  of  being 
transferred  from  man  to  the  machine  ;  and  we  might 
have  expected  that  the  prophecy  of  Aristotle  would-be 


234  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

approaching  its  fulfilment :  '  If  shuttles  would  work  by 
themselves,  and  the  plectra  and  zithers  could  play  by 
themselves,  we  should  need  no  more  slaves  '  ( '  Politics,'  i, 
2,  5).  But  the  development  of  social  organisation  has  not 
kept  pace  with  that  of  technical  art  and  of  our  general 
economic  life  ;  so  that  the  wage-earners  have  not  yet 
emerged  from  quasi-servile  conditions.  The  machine  age 
is  only  in  its  preliminary  phase. 

Capitalism,  as  he  shows,  was  highly  developed  under 
the  Eoman  Empire  ;  private  fortunes  were  on  a  larger  scale 
than  at  any  subsequent  period  before  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. But  its  basis  was  slave  labour,  not  machinery.  (He 
might  have  added  that  improvements  in  machinery  are 
always  kept  back  by  slavery.)  Accordingly,  when  the  supply 
of  slaves  fell  off,  industry  decayed.  For  the  ancients 
never  kept  human  stud-farms  like  the  planters  of  the 
Southern  States  in  America  ;  and  without  this  device, 
a  slave  population  always  decreases  rapidly.  From  the 
end  of  the  Western  Empire  till  the  beginning  of  the  in- 
dustrial revolution  capitalism  was  on  a  very  small  scale.  It 
was  discouraged  by  the  Church  and  repressed  by  the  feudal 
system.  Either  the  desire  for  accumulation  was  weaker 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  or  the  opportunities  for  gratifying 
it  were  absent.  Even  in  1825  the  whole  merchant-fleet 
of  Bremen  did  not  number  as  many  tons  as  an  ordinary 
steamer  of  to-day.  Until  steam  came  in  to  perform  the 
work  which  had  hitherto  been  done  by  the  muscles  of  men 
and  beasts,  the  large  majority  of  workmen  were  small 
handicraftsmen,  and  many  families  were  almost  entirely 
self-sufficient.  In  the  new  economic  era,  the  first  strides 
were  made  by  those  older  trades  which  had  previously 
developed  as  handicrafts ;  secondly  came  such  newer 
trades  as  those  in  rubber,  sugar,  and  chemical  works. 
Thirdly,  hand  labour  was  driven  from  spinning,  weaving, 
tanning,  brick-making  and  pottery,  which  for  thousands 
of  years  had  been  common  domestic  industries.  The 
self-sufficing  family  disappeared  ;  for  the  factories  herded 
the  workmen  together,  and  the  old  cottage  with  its  kitchen 
garden  and  pigsty  was  crowded  out.  Individual  production 
gave  way  to  co-operative  production  ;  division  of  labour 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  CIVILISATION          235 

destroyed  the  old  craftsmanship  and  the  old  independent 
artisan.  The  greatest  success  of  the  capitalistic  era  has 
been  the  immense  increase  of  export  and  import  trade. 

Dr.  Miiller  Lyer  is  impressed  by  the  truth  of  Kant's 
saying,  '  As  progress  becomes  more  rapid  its  phases  are 
shorter/  He  thinks  that  the  stage  in  which  we  now  are 
will  be  far  briefer  than  those  which  preceded  it. 
Amalgamations,  both  of  capital  and  labour,  grow  larger  ; 
and  socialised  trade,  conducted  by  the  State,  becomes 
more  and  more  important.  It  is  only  the  strong  conserva- 
tism of  domestic  economy  that  has  prevented  large  experi- 
ments in  co-operative  housekeeping,  which  would  economise 
the  greater  part  of  women's  labour.  But  such  experiments, 
as  he  sees,  are  made  difficult  by  '  our  social  sensitiveness, 
which  has  become  self-conscious  through  our  thousand 
divisions  into  classes  and  sub-classes,  and  by  the  tendency 
to  exclusiveness  inherent  in  every  family  union.'  Such 
schemes  as  those  of  Fourier  '  must  be  relegated  to  the 
dim  future.' 

It  is  impossible  not  to  regret  the  loss  of  handiness 
which  the  machine  age  has  brought  with  it.  Savages 
always  want  to  know  whether  the  traveller  has  made  all 
his  belongings  himself,  and  would  be  surprised  if  he  con- 
fessed that  he  could  not  make  one  of  them.  An  English 
visitor  to  Tahiti  found  that  the  natives  could  make  a 
hut  out  of  branches  and  leaves  ;  they  readily  kindled  fire 
by  rubbing  sticks  together.  Clothing  was  woven  during 
a  walk  to  fetch  fruit.  Flasks,  pails,  and  casks  were  scooped 
out  of  bamboo  in  a  few  minutes.  These  natives  would 
have  been  astonished  to  hear  that  a  houseless  Briton  has 
to  bully  the  State  into  spending  a  thousand  pounds  of  the 
taxpayers'  money  to  build  him  a  home,  and  that  he  is 
content  to  wait  months  for  its  completion .  Moreover,  while 
in  the  natural  state  man  is  able  to  live  out  his  own  life, 
employing  himself  in  occupations  which  make  use  of  all 
his  energies  equally,  set  his  limbs  in  motion,  excite  his 
interest,  and  call  forth  his  sagacity,  '  we  have  all  developed 
on  one  side  only,  and  become  slaves  of  labour,  some  of 
whom  all  their  lives  do  nothing  but  dig,  others  bore  or 
polish,  or  write  or  tend  a  machine.'  Fishing  and  hunting, 


236  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

the  daily  occupation  of  the  barbarian,  are  in  civilisation 
amusements  which  only  the  well-to-do  can  enjoy. 

But  our  author  finds  the  greatest  evil  wrought  by 
machinery  to  be  the  stimulus  which  it  gives  to  covetous- 
ness,  or  '  pleonexia  '  as  he  calls  it,  borrowing  a  useful  word 
from  the  Greek.  It  has  created  a  hard  and  hateful  world, 
in  which  industry  is  regarded  as  the  aim  of  existence,  and 
time  as  mere  money.  This  '  Americanism,'  as  the  Germans 
call  it,  has  attacked  the  nations  of  the  West  like  an  epidemic, 
and  though  the  almost  superhuman  energy  which  it  has 
introduced  into  life  must  excite  admiration,  it  has  brought 
with  it  no  happiness,  but  rather  envy  and  bitterness. 

Culture  in  fact  has  made  the  lot  of  the  majority  worse 
rather  than  better.  Man  in  his  primitive  condition  can 
employ  his  ability  in  harmony  with  his  own  tastes.  He  is 
free  from  anxiety  for  the  future  and  contented  with  his 
lot  ;  whereas  in  a  highly  industrialised  community  the  great 
mass  of  people  are  crowded  in  a  never-ceasing  treadmill 
of  specialised  labour,  hemmed  in  on  all  sides  by  duties 
and  restrictions,  consumed  either  by  care  or  by  '  pleonexia,' 
and  condemned  to  a  troubled  and  stunted  existence  which 
would  fill  a  savage  with  horror. 

And  yet  there  seems  to  be  no  escape.  For  the  most 
highly  organised  communities  have  the  greatest  survival 
value,  and  the  fate  of  the  individual  is  immaterial  to  the 
advance  of  the  process.  Just  as,  in  an  earlier  state  of 
society,  a  slave-holding  nation,  which  can  devote  itself 
more  exclusively  to  the  art  of  war,  is  more  powerful  than 
a  nation  of  working  agriculturists,  so  a  modern  nation 
which  forces  a  majority  of  its  members  into  the  most 
unnatural  division  of  labour  can  undersell  and  starve  out 
another  which  has  preserved  simpler  and  more  wholesome 
methods  of  production.  A  people  which  cares  only  for 
such  progress  as  can  be  measured  by  statistics  is  likely 
to  destroy  another,  higher  in  the  scale  of  civilisation, 
which  aims  at  making  a  better  quality  of  life  possible  for 
its  citizens.  The  blindly  working  forces  of  nature  favour 
perfection  of  social  organisation  rather  than  the  welfare 
of  the  individual.  In  the  most  advanced  animal  com- 
munities this  process  has  been  carried  to  a  hideous  per- 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  CIVILISATION          237 

faction.  The  beehive  is  an  appalling  object-lesson  in 
State  socialism  carried  to  its  logical  consequences. 

Mankind,  says  Dr.  Lyer,  is  in  revolt  against  this  doom. 
The  two  cries,  '  individualism  '  and  '  socialism/  are  only 
different  expressions  of  the  demand  for  happiness.  If  we 
take  these  two  ideals  as  implying  respectively  the  organisa- 
tion of  freedom  and  the  organisation  of  labour,  they  are 
complementary  to  each  other  rather  than  antagonistic. 
It  is  only  in  States  organised  for  war  that  the  interests 
of  the  individual  need  be  ruthlessly  sacrificed.  Inter- 
national commercial  relations  tend  to  unify  the  whole 
of  civilisation,  and  when  this  process  has  gone  further, 
the  State  may  become,  as  it  should  be,  the  medium  for 
the  welfare  of  its  citizens.  This  will  not  be  brought  about 
till  a  condition  of  relative  stability  is  produced.  But 
such  a  stabilisation  is  probable  in  the  near  future,  since 
there  are  no  more  empty  countries  to  be  exploited,  and 
there  are  already  signs  of  a  '  humanising  of  propagation/ 
by  which  the  reckless  and  senseless  increase  of  numbers 
may  be  brought  to  an  end.  Nothing,  our  author  says, 
justly,  has  caused  so  much  needless  suffering  among  civilised 
nations,  and  has  so  completely  neutralised  the  effect  which 
culture  should  have  in  promoting  happiness,  as  the  swollen 
birth-rates  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

When  '  the  science  of  social  forces  has  itself  become  a 
social  force/ 

we  are  justified  in  supposing  that  future  development  •will  rise 
to  undreamed-of  heights,  and  will  lead  on  to  an  era  of  perfect 
culture,  in  the  light  of  which  all  the  phases  of  our  present 
half  culture  put  together  will  seem  like  a  kind  of  childhood  of 
the  human  race.  We  almost  receive  the  impression  that 
throughout  the  tremendous  drama  of  humanity  there  has  been 
glimmering  a  secret  plan  of  salvation  and  blessing. 

Dr.  Lyer.  it  will  be  seen,  is  an  optimist,  and  he  ends 
on  an  almost  religious  note  which  sounds  oddly  from  an 
avowed  secularist,  who  has  nothing  but  contempt  for  the 
faiths  by  which  men  have  lived  in  the  past.  His  outlook 
is  what  we  have  learned  to  call  pre-war  ;  and  nothing  makes 
us  realise  so  clearly  the  profound  change  which  a  terrible 


238  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

catastrophe  has  made  in  our  judgments  about  the  world 
in  which  we  live,  than  the  fact  that  we  can  tell  without 
difficulty  whether  a  book  on  social  science  was  written 
before  or  after  1914.  For  Dr.  Lyer,  the  assumptions  of 
evolutionary  optimism  are  taken  for  granted  ;  the  course 
of  civilisation  has  been  not  only  from  a  simpler  to  a  more 
complicated  structure,  but  from  an  irrational  to  a  partially 
rational  order  of  social  life  ;  and  though  for  a  time  the 
development  of  machine  industry  seems  to  have  diminished 
human  happiness,  he  has  no  doubt  that  this  maladjustment 
will  before  long  be  set  right.  He  is  not  free  from  the 
fallacies  of  Karl  Marx,  and  more  than  once  assumes  that 
the  present  economic  system  tends  to  make  the  rich  richer 
and  the  poor  poorer.  The  statistics  of  the  national  income 
in  the  years  before  the  war  entirely  refuted  this  favourite 
argument  of  the  Socialists.  He  looks  for  a  solution  of  the 
economic  difficulty  to  nationalisation  and  State  manage- 
ment. Such  a  view  is  intelligible  in  a  German,  for  State 
administration  in  Germany  before  the  war  was  undoubtedly 
very  efficient,  and  free  from  the  reckless  wastefulness  and 
incompetence  which  have  made  public  ownership  a  byword 
in  England.  But  this  efficiency  was  the  result  of  a  bureau- 
cratic system  organised  from  above  ;  it  has  yet  to  be 
proved  that  national  trading  under  a  democracy  can  be 
either  economical  or  business-like.  And  it  is  generally 
agreed  that  the  German  system  was  prejudicial  to  personal 
initiative,  and  to  that  adaptability  on  which  the  Americans 
have  long  prided  themselves,  and  which  we  may  fairly 
boast  that  we  displayed  during  the  war.  Dr.  Lyer  is  also 
obliged  to  postulate  a  recovery  from  the  evil  spirit  of 
'  pleonexia/  which  he  considers  to  be  a  result  of  modern 
industrialism.  But  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  the  Western 
European  is  really  more  covetous  either  than  his  ancestors 
before  the  industrial  revolution,  or  than  the  picturesque 
and  romantic  Asiatic.  If  we  are  looking  for  the  man  who 
would  cut  the  throat  of  his  best  friend  for  a  few  dollars, 
it  is  not  in  Chicago  or  the  City  of  London  that  we  are  most 
likely  to  find  him.  We  cannot  cure  the  acquisitive  spirit 
by  limiting  its  opportunities.  The  peasant  proprietor  is 
perhaps  the  greediest  skinflint  alive. 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  CIVILISATION         239 

The  unexamined  postulate  of  evolutionary  optimism 
is  that  all  social  evils  have  a  natural  tendency  to  eliminate 
themselves.  There  is  no  sanction  in  history  for  this 
assumption.  Increasing  complexity  of  organisation  is 
not  necessarily  progress,  if  by  progress  is  meant  the  passage 
from  a  less  desirable  state  of  life  to  a  more  desirable.  The 
more  complex  structure  of  society  may  impose  itself 
because  it  has  a  greater  survival  value  ;  it  is  not  certain 
that  any  measures  of  social  reform  can  make  life  in  a 
highly  industrialised  community  satisfying  to  the  in- 
dividual without  impairing  the  efficiency  on  which  the 
existence  of  such  a  community  depends.  This  is  the  great 
problem  of  sociology ;  it  must  be  solved,  if  there  is  any 
solution,  without  assuming,  as  Dr.  Lyer  docs,  that  there 
is  some  mysterious  power  which  has  already  determined 
that  the  human  race  shall  advance  to  some  unimagined 
perfection.  It  is  often  forgotten  that  highly  organised 
animal  communities,  such  as  the  bees  and  ants,  must 
have  passed  through  a  period  of  rapid  '  progress,'  during 
which  their  social  life  attained  its  present  complexity,  and 
that  this  period  of  evolution  was  followed  by  a  condition 
of  stable  equilibrium  which  appears  to  be  permanent. 
Our  own  species  probably  passed  through  many  millennia 
without  appreciable  change,  and  the  restless  spirit  of 
progress  may,  for  all  we  know,  come  finally  to  rest  at  some 
time  when  man  is  once  more  in  complete  harmony  with 
his  environment.  The  shocking  revelations  of  depravity 
which  war-conditions  have  brought  to  light  in  many 
countries  have  made  such  a  possibility  less  unwelcome 
to  us  than  to  our  fathers.  The  progress  on  which  they 
prided  themselves  now  seems  to  us  to  have  been  mainly 
illusory.  This  disillusionment  has  been  well  illustrated 
by  Mr.  Max  Beerbohm.  He  has  drawn  for  us  a  picture 
of  the  nineteenth  century  in  the  person  of  a  large  and 
comfortable  man  in  side-whiskers  and  a  white  tie,  looking 
complacently  at  his  vision  of  the  future — a  still  larger 
and  more  comfortable  man  with  an  ampler  white  tie.  His 
companion  picture  of  the  twentieth  century  shows  us  a 
young  man  with  a  mourning  band  on  his  arm,  contemplating 
his  vision  of  the  future — a  large  note  of  interrogation.  So 


240  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

completely  has  a  sudden  convulsion  shattered  our  rosy 
dreams,  and  left  us  gazing  anxiously  into  the  void. 

Dr.  Austin  Freeman's  book  reflects  the  post-war  temper 
of  disillusionment  and  perplexity.  But  his  main  subject 
is  the  reign  of  the  machine,  and  its  reactions  upon  the  life 
of  mankind.  The  part  played  in  human  activities  by 
muscular  exertion  has  decreased  very  rapidly  in  the  last 
hundred  years.  A  century  ago,  our  muscles  were  the 
chief  motive  power.  Now,  machinery  is  finding  its  way 
even  into  the  smallest  establishments.  So  with  transport. 
A  hundred  years  ago  journeys  were  chiefly  made  on  foot 
or  on  horseback,  and  our  ancestors  thought  nothing  of 
a  thirty  miles'  walk.  Now  we  scramble  into  an  omnibus 
to  escape  the  exertion  of  walking  a  few  hundred  yards.  It 
is  well  known  that  the  disuse  of  function  results  in  loss  of 
function  and  atrophy  of  the  disused  organs  ;  to  counteract 
which  the  modern  man  uses  dumb-bells  and  developers, 
which  would  astonish  a  savage  as  much  as  anything  else 
in  our  civilisation.  The  factory  hands,  the  chief  victims 
of  the  machine,  are  as  a  rule  of  very  poor  physique  ;  they 
are  small  and  stunted,  with  bad  teeth,  and  suffer  much 
from  pulmonary  and  digestive  troubles.  Their  death-rates 
are  far  higher  than  those  in  rural  areas.  Dr.  Freeman 
might  have  added  that  in  spite  of  the  advance  in  medical 
science,  the  expectation  of  life  after  sixty,  in  all  classes 
together,  is  slightly  less  than  it  was  half  a  century  ago :  a 
clear  proof  that  we  are  not  living  healthy  lives.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  health,  our  urban  civilisation  is  a  failure. 

Progress,  as  Dr.  Freeman  sees  clearly,  is  of  two  kinds. 
It  may  refer  to  changes  in  the  environment,  including  the 
store  of  transmitted  experience  ;  or  it  may  mean  those 
changes  by  which  man  himself  has  been  improved.  The 
two  aspects  by  no  means  coincide. 

Intrinsic  progress  was  great,  and  may  have  been  rapid, 
when  man  was  first  becoming  human.  The  decisive 
modifications  were  doubtless  due  to  variations  which 
established  themselves,  and  which  definitely  lifted  our 
species  into  a  condition  in  which  men  could  begin  their 
conquest  of  nature.  But  from  an  early  date,  progress 
has  been  almost  entirely  environmental.  The  change  in 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  CIVILISATION         241 

the  relation  of  man  to  his  surroundings  has  been  amazing. 
The  little  hairless  animal  that  once  crept,  naked  and 
forlorn,  over  the  face  of  the  earth,  the  sport  of  the  elements, 
the  prey  of  the  larger  beasts  ;  behold  him  now  in  all  the 
opulence  of  his  great  inheritance  of  knowledge,  lording  it 
over  the  world  through  which  he  once  sneaked  in  continual 
peril  of  his  life.  He  burrows  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth  ; 
he  traverses  its  surface  at  a  speed  which  leaves  the  fleetest 
beast  as  stationary  ;  he  follows  the  leviathan  into  the 
depths  of  the  sea  ;  he  soars  to  heights  inaccessible  to  the 
eagle.  In  time  of  peace  we  congratulated  ourselves  on 
the  humanising  effects  of  these  discoveries  ;  but  we  know 
now  that  primitive  barbarism  was  only  dormant,  and 
ready  to  be  roused  into  active  savagery  at  the  first  beat 
of  the  drum.  And  under  the  conditions  of  modern  warfare, 
the  lives  and  property  of  non-combatants  are  exposed  to 
dangers  which  are  the  direct  result  of  the  new  knowledge. 
The  discovery  of  flying  has  so  far  been  an  almost  unmixed 
curse  to  humanity,  and  is  a  menace  to  the  very  existence 
of  civilisation.  Nor  can  we  congratulate  ourselves  without 
hesitation  on  the  rise  in  the  standard  of  comfort,  which  only 
means  that  we  make  increased  demands  on  our  environ- 
ment. '  There  is  much  truth  in  the  saying  of  Diogenes, 
that  a  man's  wealth  may  be  estimated  in  terms  of  the 
things  which  he  can  do  without.'  The  accumulation  of 
wealth  and  the  increase  of  numbers,  without  any  real 
advance  in  individual  character  or  mental  capacity,  do 
not  make  for  happiness. 

The  theory  and  practice  of  government  are  divided 
between  sociologists,  who  have  knowledge  but  no  power, 
and  politicians,  who  have  power  but  no  knowledge.  '  The 
professional  politician  whom  democracy  has  brought  into 
existence  differs  entirely  from  other  professional  men. 
He  is  totally  unqualified.'  Such  knowledge  as  the  old 
parliamentary  hand  has  acquired  teaches  him  only  how 
to  get  office  and  to  keep  in  office  ;  it  has  no  relation  to 
political  wisdom  or  statesmanship.  For  example,  the 
First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty  may  be  a  brewer,  a  publisher, 
or  a  stockbroker.  And  yet  this  is  a  time  when  the  functions 
of  government  are  being  extended  every  year. 

n.  u 


242  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

The  division  of  Labour  has  destroyed  the  old  crafts- 
man. Not  a  man  in  a  boot  factory  is  able  to  make  a  pair 
of  boots.  Even  in  the  Art  Schools  the  pupils  are  being 
trained,  not  to  be  artists,  but  to  be  Art  School-masters  and 
mistresses ;  and  the  Technical  School  scholars  are  being 
trained  to  be  Technical  School-masters.  The  old  appren- 
ticeship produced  very  different  results  at  a  small  fraction 
of  the  cost. 

Everyone  who  knows  the  inside  of  a  Government 
department  notices  its  incapacity  as  compared  with  a 
private  business  concern.  The  business  men  who  joined 
the  Army,  and  were  seldom  employed  in  the  work  of 
management,  were  unanimous  in  their  verdict  that  '  if 
any  private  firm  were  conducted  in  this  way,  it  would 
be  bankrupt  in  a  week.'  And  yet  the  clamour  for  nation- 
alisation goes  on.  It  is  a  clamour  to  substitute  a  system 
of  proved  inefficiency  for  one  which  has  worked  well  as 
a  method  of  production.  Another  manifest  evil  is  the 
splitting  up  of  the  community  into  minor  aggregations, 
each  tyrannically  ruled  from  within,  antagonistic  to  each 
other  and  to  the  community  as  a  whole.  '  A  spirit  of 
mutual  hostility  and  of  collective  selfishness  and  greed 
replaces  the  patriotism,  public  spirit,  and  citizenship  on 
which  civilisation  grew  and  on  which  alone  it  can  be 
maintained.' 

The  scheme  of  elevating  the  social  organism  as  a  whole 
without  improving  the  individuals  who  compose  it  has 
only  the  results  of  degrading  the  individuals  still  further  ; 
for  the  '  social  organism  '  is  a  very  low  type  of  organism, 
a  simple  aggregate  of  complex  units  ;  and  by  absorption 
into  an  organised  aggregate  of  this  low  type  the  individual, 
as  we  have  seen,  becomes  functionally  atrophied. 

Having  thus  dealt  faithftilly  and  somewhat  severely 
with  our  modern  institutions,  Dr.  Freeman  girds  up  his 
loins  for  an  attack  on  machinery.  These  chapters  might 
have  been  the  exhortation  which  persuaded  Samuel  Butler's 
Erewhonians  to  destroy  all  their  machines  and  forbid 
the  manufacture  even  of  a  watch.  '  Mechanism  is  an 
independent  entity  governed  by  its  own  laws  and  having 
no  necessary  connexion  with  human  needs  and  human 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  CIVILISATION          243 

welfare.'  The  development  of  the  machine  is  in  the 
direction  of  ever-increasing  automatism.  The  total  elimina- 
tion of  the  human  worker  is  the  goal  towards  which  it  is 
moving.  Man  is  being  driven  from  the  principal  field 
of  his  activity. 

The  reign  of  the  machine  has,  for  the  first  time,  made 
the  earth  hideous.  The  old  town  was  an  improvement 
to  the  landscape ;  the  new  town  is  an  eyesore.  The  old 
sailing  ship  was  a  thing  of  beauty  ;  the  new  steamer  wastes 
no  effort  in  vain  attempts  not  to  be  ugly.  A  more  im- 
portant indictment  is  that  before  the  age  of  machines  the 
inroads  made  by  man  on  irreplaceable  material  were 
moderate,  and  offered  no  menace  to  posterity. 

Pre-mechanical  civilisation  had  left  the  original  environ- 
ment of  man  largely  undisturbed,  its  outward  aspect  little 
changed,  its  store  of  mineral  wealth  almost  intact ;  and  in  so 
far  as  it  had  reacted  upon  human  environment,  the  result  of 
the  reactions  was  to  increase  the  habitability  of  the  world  for 
man. 

The  last  hundred  years  have  seen  a  complete  change  in 
these  conditions.  Pre-mechanical  man  lived  on  the 
interest  of  his  environment ;  mechanical  man  lives  very 
extravagantly  on  the  capital.  The  power-machine  is  an 
insatiable  consumer  of  coal  and  iron.  Nobody  supposes 
that  the  world's  supply  of  coal  will  last  for  as  much  as  a 
thousand  years,  even  if  our  miners  (animated,  no  doubt, 
by  far-seeing  forethought  for  posterity)  refuse,  at  frequent 
intervals,  to  bring  it  to  the  surface.  The  forests  of  the 
world  are  also  being  rapidly  destroyed,  largely  to  gratify 
the  insatiable  demands  of  the  newspapers  for  wood  pulp. 
Many  of  us  will  think  that  '  one  impulse  from  the  vernal 
wood  '  might  teach  us  more  than '  all  the  sages  '  who  write 
for  the  daily  press.  But  the  vernal  wood  is  being  cut 
down.  The  visible  tokens  of  the  triumphant  machine 
are  our  horrible  factory  towns  with  their  forests  of  tall 
chimneys  ;  their  unending  rows  of  mean  houses,  peopled 
by  crowds  of  dingy  workers  ;  and  the  pall  of  black  smoke 
above  their  heads  which  pours  down  a  shower  of  soot 
through  the  twice-breathed  air,  and  devastates  the  country 


244  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

for  miles  beyond  the  radius  of  the  town  itself.  If  those 
philosophers  are  right  who  hold  that  beauty  is  an  attribute 
of  the  Deity,  and  that  ugliness  of  every  kind  is  displeasing 
in  His  sight,  our  modern  civilisation  is  a  blatant  blasphemy. 

Dependence  on  the  smooth  working  of  this  complicated 
mechanism  has  made  "Western  society  much  more  vulnerable 
than  it  was  before.  Even  in  Kussia  the  paralysis  of 
commerce  has  turned  the  towns  into  cemeteries  ;  and 
our  trade  unions  have  made  the  welcome  discovery  that 
they  can  '  hold  up  '  the  community  as  successfully  as  ever 
Dick  Turpin  waylaid  a  coach.  A  revolution  in  England 
would  condemn  millions  to  actual  death  by  starvation. 

Aesthetically  the  influence  of  the  machine  is  bad, 
because  it  destroys  variety  and  individuality.  We  do 
not  want  to  find  the  same  furniture,  carpets,  wall-papers, 
and  ornaments  in  every  house ;  such  uniformity  is  as 
dull  as  a  picture-gallery  filled  with  replicas  of  a  single 
picture. 

Dr.  Freeman  sums  up  the  reactions  of  the  power- 
machine  on  industry  as  follows  :  (1)  the  disappearance  of 
the  skilled  craftsman  and  his  replacement  by  the  manu- 
facturer and  the  semi-skilled  or  unskilled  factory  hand  ; 
with  the  like  disappearance  of  the  skilled  shop-keeper 
and  his  replacement  by  the  vendor  of  factory-made  goods  ; 
(2)  the  disappearance  of  small  local  industries  ;  (3)  the 
disappearance  of  commodities  made  by  hand  with  conscious 
adaptation  to  human  and  even  personal  needs,  and  their 
replacement  by  goods  produced  by  machinery  and  adjusted 
to  the  needs  of  machine  production.  The  characteristics 
of  the  new  production  are  great  quantity  and  small  variety, 
low  price  and  debasement  in  the  character  of  products ; 
(4)  lowering  of  standard  in  production  ;  (5)  wasteful  habits 
and  disrespect  for  the  products  of  industry ;  (6)  lowering 
of  public  taste  by  frequent  contact  with  things  tastelessly 
designed  and  badly  made.  The  worker  has  hitherto  been 
the  chief  sufferer ;  but  now  the  solitary  virtue — cheapness 
— of  machine-made  articles  is  passing  away,  and  the 
consumer  also  is  to  be  pitied. 

Dr.  Freeman  pursues  his  relentless  attack,  and  con- 
siders the  reaction  of  machinery  upon  man  collectively. 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  CIVILISATION          245 

The  industrial  revolution  was  the  greatest  revolution  that 
has  ever  occurred.  Formerly,  the  surroundings  of  the 
worker  were  usually  pleasant.  The  hours  were  long,  but 
the  conditions  of  labour  were  easy,  enlivened  by  chat 
with  neighbours  over  the  loom  or  through  the  smithy  door. 
The  worker  was  also  a  master  who  determin/d  his  own 
hours  of  work,  and  since  he  dealt  directly  with  the  consumer 
he  received  the  entire  profit  of  his  labour.  One  of  the 
earliest  results  of  machinery  was  to  break  up  the  little 
society  in  which  the  workmen  were  amicably  distributed 
among  the  rest  of  the  population,  and  to  concentrate 
the  '  hands '  in  separate  aggregates,  with  habits  and 
sympathies  different  from  those  of  other  classes.  The 
conditions  of  factory  labour  were  for  half  a  century  and 
more  thoroughly  bad,  and  feelings  of  resentment  and 
antagonism  were  rooted  more  and  more  deeply  in  the 
minds  of  the  labourers.  The  result  has  been  that  they  have 
formed  combinations  held  together  by  a  tyrannical  organisa- 
tion and  discipline,  and  constantly  engaged  in  acts  of  war. 
They  lean  to  collectivism,  which  is  the  total  suppression 
of  personal  liberty ;  they  have  no  ambition  to  return  to 
craftsmanship  of  the  old  kind  ;  they  have  never  known 
it  and  are  quite  unfit  for  it.  '  That  the  working  class 
consists  largely  of  men  of  very  slight  skill  was  clearly  shown 
during  the  war,  when  so-called  skilled  men  were  called  up 
for  service  and  easily  replaced  by  admittedly  unskilled  men, 
or  even  by  shop-girls  and  domestic  servants.'  The  most 
sinister  development  of  class-consciousness  is  syndicalism, 
which  is  frankly  anti-social  as  well  as  anti-democratic. 
It  aims  at  setting  up  class  antagonism  and  conducting 
class  warfare.  It  tends  to  make  a  good  fellow  (for  so  the 
average  workman  is)  into  a  very  bad  citizen. 

Another  evil  of  the  present  system  is  the  opportunity 
which  it  gives  to  a  few  individuals  to  amass  enormous 
fortunes  which  are  a  curse  to  themselves  and  their  families 
and  a  scandal  to  the  world.  Dr.  Freeman  traces  the 
evolution  of  an  enterprising  retailer  into  the  proprietor 
of  shops  scattered  all  over  the  country,  who  often  becomes 
his  own  grower,  importer,  shipowner,  manufacturer, 
wholesaler  and  retailer — with  profits  on  every  stage  of 


246  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

the  business.  The  final  stage  is  the  amalgamation  of 
several  huge  competing  concerns  of  this  type  into  a  combine 
or  trust,  holding  a  virtual  monopoly.  The  spectacle  of 
even  a  few  multi-millionaires  of  this  kind  is  a  reductio  ad 
absurdum  of  our  whole  system,  and  a  potent  factor  of 
unrest  and  discontent.  The  plutocrats  try  to  protect 
themselves  by  buying  up  and  controlling  the  press,  whereby 
democracy  is  poisoned  at  its  source  and  is  even  coming 
to  be  regarded  as  an  obstacle  to  social  reform. 

One  other  bad  result  remains  to  be  noted.  There  are 
not  enough  consumers  at  home  to  keep  the  great  industries 
running  at  their  maximum  profit,  and  so  the  surplus  must 
be  unloaded  on  foreign  countries.  Hence  the  scramble 
for  markets,  and  the  constant  danger  of  wars  for  trade. 
Population  has  been  stimulated  on  the  assumption  that 
the  possibilities  of  export  were  unlimited ;  unfavourable 
trade  conditions  produce  at  once  a  vast  amount  of  un- 
employment, which  means  that  a  large  fraction  of  the 
population  who,  through  no  fault  of  their  own,  are  con- 
tributing nothing  to  the  wealth  of  the  country,  have  to  be 
supported  by  doles  levied  on  the  producers.  Over- 
population and  unemployment  are  the  inevitable  result 
of  machine  civilisation. 

Man,  individually,  is  a  heavy  loser.  The  majority  of 
workmen  are,  as  it  were,  parasitic  on  the  machine  which 
has  ousted  them  from  natural  human  occupations.  Let 
us  consider  the  fate  of  a  shipload  of  factory  hands  cast 
on  a  fertile  but  uninhabited  island.  Could  they,  like  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers,  found  a  self-contained  and  civilised 
community  ?  Obviously  they  could  not.  If  they  did 
not  die  of  starvation,  they  would  be  found  six  months 
later  living  as  savages.  Dr.  Freeman  has  watched  three 
hundred  African  natives  caught  by  a  storm  on  the  borders 
of  the  great  forest  in  West  Africa.  The  natives,  who 
carried  cutlasses,  disappeared  into  the  forest,  from  which 
they  presently  emerged  carrying  bundles  of  poles  and 
coils  of  monkey-rope.  In  about  an  hour  he  was  amazed 
to  see  a  village  ready  for  habitation.  This  story  re- 
sembles the  experience  of  the  traveller  in  Tahiti,  mentioned 
by  Dr.  Muller  Lyer.  Let  us  turn  OUT  thoughts  once  more 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  CIVILISATION          247 

for  a  moment  to  the  Government's  '  Housing  Scheme.' 
Our  ancestors  '  would  no  more  have  dreamed  of  asking 
the  State  to  build  their  houses  than  to  comb  their  hair.' 
A  melancholy  chapter  follows  on  Social  Parasitism. 
Dr.  Freeman  spares  no  class  in  this  part  of  his  indictment ; 
but  he  sees  the  greatest  danger  in  what  he  considers  the 
evident  intention  of  '  Labour '  to  become  parasitic  on 
the  community.  The  essence  of  parasitism  is  the  demand 
for  remuneration  determined  by  the  desires  of  the  producer, 
irrespective  of  the  value  of  the  work  which  he  produces. 
He  has  no  difficulty  in  showing  how  the  blood  of  the 
industrious  is  sucked  in  a  dozen  places  to  feed  the  idle 
or  incompetent,  and  the  egregious  bureaucracy  which 
exists  mainly  to  extort  and  squander  the  fruits  of  pro- 
ductive toil. 

That  fabulous  community  whose  members  lived  by  taking 
in  each  other's  washing  was  an  economically  sound  concern 
compared  with  one  in  which  a  vast  majority  should  subsist 
parasitically  on  the  earnings  of  a  dwindling  minority.  Yet  this 
is  the  social  state  towards  which  our  own  society  is  advancing. 

Dr.  Freeman  next  (after  an  adverse  criticism  of  collect- 
ivism, which  he  has  anticipated  in  some  earlier  chapters) 
gives  his  experiences  of  the  British  '  sub-man  '  as  he  saw 
him  while  inspecting  conscripts.  The  evidences  of  de- 
generacy were  painfully  apparent. 

Compared  with  the  African  negro,  the  British  sub-man  is 
in  several  respects  markedly  inferior.  He  tends  to  be  dull  ;  he 
is  usually  quite  helpless  and  unhandy  ;  he  has,  as  a  rule,  no  skill 
or  knowledge  of  handicraft,  or  indeed  knowledge  of  any  kind. 
The  negro,  on  the  contrary,  is  usually  sprightly  and  humorous. 
He  is  generally  well-informed  as  to  the  flora  and  fauna  of  his 
region,  and  nearly  always  knows  the  principal  constellations. 
He  has  some  traditional  knowledge  of  religion,  myths  and  folk- 
lore, and  some  acquaintance  with  music.  He  is  handy  and 
self-helpful ;  he  can  usually  build  a  house,  thatch  a  roof,  obtain 
and  prepare  food,  make  a  fire  without  matches,  spin  yarn,  and  can 
often  weave  cotton  cloth  and  make  and  mend  simple  implements. 
Physically  he  is  robust,  active,  hardy  and  energetic. 

Over-population  is  a  phenomenon  connected  with  the 
survival  of  the  unfit,  and  it  is  mechanism  which  has  created 


248  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

conditions  favourable  to  the  survival  of  the  unfit  and  the 
elimination  of  the  fit. 

The  whole  indictment  against  machinery  may  be 
summed  up  in  Dr.  Freeman's  own  words : 

Mechanism  by  its  reactions  on  man  and  his  environment  is 
antagonistic  to  human  welfare.  It  has  destroyed  industry  and 
replaced  it  by  mere  labour ;  it  has  degraded  and  vulgarised 
the  works  of  man ;  it  has  destroyed  social  unity  and  replaced 
it  by  social  disintegration  and  class  antagonism  to  an  extent 
which  directly  threatens  civilisation  ;  it  has  injuriously  affected 
the  structural  type  of  society  by  developing  its  organisation  at 
the  expense  of  the  individual ;  it  has  endowed  the  inferior  man 
with  political  power  which  he  employs  to  the  common  disad- 
vantage by  creating  political  institutions  of  a  socially  destructive 
type ;  and  finally  by  its  reactions  on  the  activities  of  war  it 
constitutes  an  agent  for  the  wholesale  physical  destruction  of 
man  and  his  works  and  the  extinction  of  human  culture.  It 
is  thus  strictly  analogous  to  those  anti-bodies  by  which  the 
existence  of  aggregates  of  the  lower  organisms  is  brought  to 
an  end. 

We  turn  eagerly  from  this  terrible  diagnosis  to  the 
consideration  of  remedies.  '  The  ultimate  anti-condition 
is  the  suspension  of  natural  selection.'  To  deal  with  this, 
elimination  of  the  unfit  is  more  practicable  at  present  than 
eugenic  attempts  to  breed  supermen.  Nevertheless  the 
adoption  of  Dr.  Rentoul's  method  of  sterilisation  is  beset 
with  difficulties.  (Personally,  I  think  that  public  opinion 
would  be  so  much  shocked  by  the  advocacy  of  it  that  it 
would  set  back  incalculably  the  whole  cause  of  racial 
hygiene.)  So  Dr.  Freeman  falls  back  on  the  Old  Testament 
doctrine  of  a  '  remnant.'  A  '  nucleus  of  superior  individ- 
uals '  might  render  possible,  even  at  the  eleventh  hour,  a 
social  reconstruction.  He  suggests  a  '  voluntary  segregation 
of  the  fit,'  a  society  of  men  and  women  who  would  deter- 
mine to  lead  healthy  lives  under  natural  conditions,  free 
from  the  tyranny  of  mechanism,  and  supplying  each  other's 
modest  needs  by  hand  labour. 

It  is  much  to  be  feared  that  this  scheme  is  quite  un- 
workable. To  collect  a  society  of  eugenic  craftsmen  and 
professional  people  in  local  centres  would  surely  be  im- 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  CIVILISATION         249 

possible  in  such  a  country  as  England.  And  even  if  they 
could  establish  themselves  in  certain  districts,  they  would 
not  escape  the  burdens  which  the  State  is  imposing  on 
all  hard-working  citizens.  They  would  be  taxed,  as  Dr. 
Freeman  says  that  they  are  now,  to  support  the  swarming 
progeny  of  the  unfit,  to  make  the  wastrel  comfortable,  and 
to  provide  soft  jobs  and  pensions  for  the  civil  servant  and 
the  politician.  The  experiment  would  be  started  under 
conditions  which  would  foredoom  it  to  failure.  Moreover, 
the  trade  unions  would  certainly  attack  and  destroy  the 
new  society  before  it  could  grow.  And  lastly,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  stirpiculture,  the  effect  of  the  experiment, 
while  it  lasted,  would  be  to  drain  off  the  best,  leaving  the 
residuum  worse  than  before. 

These  objections  seem  fatal  to  the  establishment  of  a 
segregated  '  remnant '  in  Great  Britain.  But  there  is 
no  reason  why  the  experiment  should  not  be  tried  in  a 
new  country.  A  Company  might  be  founded  to  acquire 
a  sufficient  tract  of  land  in  Rhodesia,  Tasmania,  Western 
Canada,  or  Southern  Chile,  on  which  a  community  of 
picked  emigrants  might  settle  and  try  to  live  in  the  good 
old  fashion,  as  Dr.  Freeman  wishes.  It  is  most  desirable 
that  sociological  experiments  should  be  freely  tried ;  for 
it  is  only  by  experiment  that  the  value  of  proposals  for 
an  ideal  commonwealth  can  be  tested.  The  trade  unions 
might  easily  put  their  theories  into  practice  if  they  wished ; 
they  could  start  co-operative  production  without  paying 
any  toll  to  '  functionless  capital ' ;  but  apparently  they 
are  too  prudent.  The  Communists,  to  do  them  justice, 
have  not  shrunk  from  experiments  ;  and  they  have  demon- 
strated conclusively  that  on  a  large  scale  Communism  means 
the  swift  death  of  all  human  industry  except  agriculture. 
Dr.  Freeman's  society  would  be  less  ambitious.  It  would 
aim  only  at  reproducing  the  simple,  self-contained  social 
life  of  the  age  before  machinery.  In  any  country  where 
unoccupied  land  of  good  quality  can  still  be  bought,  such 
a  community  might  live  very  happily ;  but  not  in  England. 

The  constructive  part  of  the  book  which  we  have 
been  considering  is  therefore  very  disappointing.  It 
leaves  us  with  no  remedy  for  a  state  of  things  which  the 


250  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

author  thinks  almost  desperate.  So  lame  a  conclusion 
to  a  very  able  social  diagnosis  should  make  us  realise  how 
deep  and  difficult  the  problem  is.  Civilisation  is  faced 
with  a  great  dilemma.  It  has  grown,  like  every  other 
organism,  in  response  to  its  environment.  It  has 
strengthened  itself  by  utilising  that  environment  to  the 
uttermost.  The  secrets  of  nature  have  been  penetrated, 
and  its  forces,  one  after  another,  have  been  harnessed  to 
a  car  of  Juggernaut,  which  seems  now  to  be  crushing  its 
own  worshippers.  No  society  which  has  refused  to  use 
the  new  mechanical  discoveries  can  hold  its  own  in  com- 
petition against  the  highly  industrialised  societies.  Even 
in  Europe,  the  Latin  countries,  which  are  poor  in  mineral 
wealth,  have  fallen  behind  in  the  race.  The  quick-witted 
and  ambitious  Japanese  have  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal, 
and  their  ancient  culture,  so  pretty  and  gracious,  is  being 
vulgarised  and  brutalised  before  our  eyes.  Some  of  the 
nature-peoples,  like  the  South  Sea  islanders,  have  withered 
at  the  first  touch  of  the  men  with  the  machines,  and  seem 
to  be  dying  of  mere  despair.  And  yet  the  all-conquering 
civilisation  of  the  West  now  appears  to  be  stricken  itself. 
In  Dr.  Freeman's  language,  its  own  activities  have  generated 
toxins  which  are  poisoning  it.  The  machine,  though  it  is 
our  master,  cannot  work  without  human  auxiliaries  ;  and 
these,  at  the  moment  when  they  seemed  about  to  be 
themselves  thoroughly  mechanised  in  its  service,  are  in 
violent  revolt. 

The  Erewhonian  policy  of  breaking  up  the  machines  is 
manifestly  impossible  in  this  country.  It  would  condemn 
more  than  half  the  population  to  starve.  We  are  and 
must  remain  the  slaves  of  our  machines,  so  long  as  we  are 
unable  to  feed  our  own  population. 

But  a  mere  check  on  natural  increase  will  not  solve  the 
problem  how  we  are  to  return  to  a  more  natural  and  healthy 
type  of  civilisation.  The  remedy  may  be  partly  in  our 
own  hands.  If,  for  example,  we  chose  to  clothe  ourselves 
in  homespuns  which  would  last  half  a  life-time  instead 
of  in  cheap  machine-made  garments  which  wear  out  in 
two  or  three  years,  one  old  industry  might  be  revived. 
There  is  much  to  be  said  for  making  national  dress  reform 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  CIVILISATION         251 

a  practical  question.  Women  would  no  doubt  resist  it 
furiously,  and  it  could  not  be  forced  upon  them  ;  but  the 
male  sex  cannot  be  enamoured  of  the  ugly,  costly  and 
inconvenient  garments  which  fashion  compels  them  to 
wear.  An  exhibition  of  new  costumes  would  be  very 
interesting,  and  would  be  popular  enough  to  cover  ex- 
penses. There  are  many  other  ways  in  which  life  could 
be  simplified  ;  and  every  unnecessary  concession  to  fashion 
increases  our  slavery  to  the  machine.  We  have  seen  a 
welcome  improvement  in  the  furniture  of  living  rooms, 
which  forty  years  ago  were  so  encumbered  with  useless 
tables  and  chairs  and  cheap  ornaments  that  there  was 
hardly  room  to  turn  round.  We  ought  to  accustom  our- 
selves to  think  of  the  conditions  under  which  everything 
that  we  buy  is  produced.  We  should  then  take  much  more 
pleasure  in  a  hand-made  article,  with  some  individuality 
in  it,  than  in  a  standardised  product  of  a  great  factory, 
which  speaks  of  nothing  but  soulless  and  irksome  labour. 
There  are  still  opportunities  of  encouraging  good  crafts- 
manship, in  wood-carving,  for  instance,  and  house  decora- 
tion. The  real  difficulty  is  that  the  uneducated  do  not 
seem  to  wish  for  good  articles,  unless  they  can  boast  of 
the  price  they  paid  for  them.  We  are  now  suffering 
from  standardised  minds  as  well  as  from  standardised 
commodities  ;  and  they  suit  each  other.  It  would  be  a 
very  wholesome  sign  if  workmen  were  to  refuse  to  be  bound 
either  by  trade  union  rules  or  by  the  '  customs  of  the  trade,' 
and  were  to  insist  on  working  according  to  their  own  bent, 
and  selling  the  works  of  their  own  hands.  So  far,  the  outcry 
against  mechanism  has  come  mainly 'from  artistic  disciples 
of  Ruskin  and  Morris ;  the  workman  aims  not  at  humanising 
the  quality  of  his  labour,  but  at  diminishing  its  quantity. 
We  may  however  trust  with  confidence  to  the  permanence 
of  that  best  side  of  human  nature,  which  makes  good 
and  beautiful  creation  one  of  the  chief  pleasures  of  life. 
Opportunity  only  is  needed. 

Behind  all  this,  there  is  the  strange  question  whether 
man  the  toolmaker  did  not,  when  he  made  that  momentous 
choice,  forfeit  the  possibility'  of  further  intrinsic  progress. 
Can  we  say  that  as  is  the  photographer  to  the  painter,  so  is 


252  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

man  as  he  is  to  man  as  he  might  have  been  ?  We  all  admit 
the  blunder  of  slavery ;  it  is  not  good  for  man  to  compel 
other  men  to  fetch  and  carry  for  him  till  he  becomes  almost 
as  helpless  as  Lord  Avebury's  slave-holding  ants,  which 
cannot  even  feed  themselves.  But  must  we  also  pay  the 
penalty  for  our  lavish  use  of  '  lifeless  instruments,'  as 
Aristotle  called  our  non-human  slaves  ?  Is  the  man  of  the 
machine  age  condemned  to  progressive  functional  atrophy 
of  all  the  aptitudes  which  are  useful  to  the  savage  but  un- 
necessary for  himself  ?  And  is  this  functional  atrophy  the 
beginning  of  a  deplorable  atavism  such  as  Dr.  Freeman 
found  in  his  British  '  sub-men '  when  compared  with  his 
West  African  negroes  ?  We  seem  to  be  getting  near  the 
position  of  Edward  Carpenter's  '  Civilisation :  its  Cause 
and  Cure.'  And  yet,  if  we  were  given  our  wish,  and  trans- 
ported back  to  a  century  when  human  muscles  did  nearly 
all  the  work  that  was  done,  we  should  be  intensely  irritated 
at  the  waste  of  time  and  energy  which  we  should  find  every- 
where. It  would  not  be  long  before  we  began  to  write  a 
book  called  '  Barbarism  :  its  Cause  and  Cure,'  for  the 
benefit  of  our  benighted  contemporaries. 

It  is  probably  very  much  too  late  to  reverse  the  decision 
which  our  ancestors  made  tens  of  thousands  of  years  ago, 
and  which  may,  for  aught  we  know,  have  preserved  our 
valuable  species  from  being  nipped  in  the  bud.  For  better 
or  worse,  man  is  the  tool-using  animal,  and  as  such  he  has 
become  the  lord  of  creation.  When  he  is  lord  also  of  him- 
self, he  will  deserve  his  self -chosen  title  of  homo  sapiens.  It 
is  something  that  we  can  see  before  us  the  dilemma  of 
civilisation.  Diagnosis  is  not  the  same  as  cure  ;  but  in 
some  diseases  it  is  more  than  half  of  the  physician's  task. 
The  two  anthropologists  whose  books  we  have  been  con- 
sidering agree  in  their  diagnosis,  though  they  differ  as  to 
treatment.  Both  are  convinced  that  civilised  man,  in 
enslaving  the  forces  of  nature,  has  become  less  of  a  man 
than  he  was  before.  He  has  succeeded  in  partially  super- 
seding himself ;  many  of  his  natural  activities  are  left  un- 
used ;  and  in  consequence  he  is  neither  healthy  nor  happy. 
Outraged  nature,  as  Gibbon  says,  has  her  occasional 
revenges;  and  civilisation  is  in  danger  of  becoming, a 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  CIVILISATION          253 

systematic  and  sustained  outrage  against  nature.  The 
German  savant  sees  the  remedy  in  more  perfect  organisa- 
tion ;  in  other  words,  our  conquest  of  our  environment  is 
to  be  made  more  complete.  The  Englishman  advocates 
the  practice  of  eugenics  and  of  the  simple  life  for  those  who 
are  willing  to  submit  to  this  discipline  ;  he  has,  apparently, 
no  hope  that  the  mechanisation  of  life  can  ever  be  turned 
to  the  real  improvement  and  happiness  of  mankind.  It 
may  be  that  as  the  German,  writing  before  the  cataclysm, 
under- estimates  the  disruptive  forces  in  society  and  proposes 
to  '  heal  too  slightly '  the  wounds  of  modern  life,  so  the 
Englishman  is  too  ready  to  assume  that  the  disorders  which 
have  followed  the  war  indicate  a  final  break-up  of  our  whole 
social  order.  The  future  will  show  whether  civilisation,  as 
we  know  it,  can  be  mended  or  must  be  ended.  The  time 
seems  ripe  for  a  new  birth  of  religious  and  spiritual  life, 
which  may  remould  society,  as  no  less  potent  force  would 
have  the  strength  to  do. 


EUGENICS 

EUGENICS,  which  is  the  application  of  biological  science 
to  sociology,  must  at  present  be  judged  rather  by  its  aims 
and  promise  than  by  its  results.  The  experts  who  are 
engaged  in  genetical  research  are  agreed  in  deprecating 
hasty  action.  They  know  the  extreme  complexity  of  the 
problems  which  they  are  investigating ;  they  know  the 
jealousy  with  which  nature  guards  her  most  intimate 
secrets.  But  they  are  no  less  agreed  that  the  creation  of 
a  new  social  conscience — I  bad  almost  said  a  new  ethics 
— is  imperatively  required,  if  civilisation  is  to  escape  utter 
disaster.  The  conversion  or  enlightenment  of  public 
opinion  would  be  a  great  help  to  the  science  of  genetics. 
A  few  thousands  of  voluntary  workers,  collecting  and 
tabulating  details  of  their  family  histories,  would  be  very 
useful.  Gal  ton  tried  to  enlist  the  interest  of  the  public 
in  this  work,  but  the  response  was  not  very  encouraging. 
Last  year,  the  Minister  of  Education  in  the  Swedish 
Parliament,  in  supporting  the  establishment  of  an  Institute 
for  Race-Biology,  made  the  following  remarks  : — 

It  is  doubtless  clear  to  everyone  who  is  awake  to  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  time  in  which  we  live,  that  we  cannot  help 
feeling  anxious  about  the  future  of  civilised  nations.  At  the 
centre  of  the  many  powerful  forces  which  are  at  work  to 
improve  and  ennoble  the  human  race,  many  regrettable  and 
dangerous  conditions  show  themselves  which  threaten  to  under- 
mine and  annihilate  the  work  of  these  forces.  At  the  same 
time  that  the  welfare  of  the  people,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  im- 
proved, the  mortality  diminished,  the  average  length  of  life 
increased,  they  are  threatened  by  a  deterioration  of  race.  The 
vigour  of  the  race  is  destroyed,  which  is  too  high  a  price  to  pay 
for  the  advantages  gained  by  the  high  standard  to  which  our 

254 


EUGENICS  255 

material  and  mental  culture  has  attained.  For  some  time 
endeavours  have  been  made  to  counteract  the  destroying  forces. 
But  they  have  been  chiefly  directed  to  improving  the  outward 
conditions  of  human  life,  the  social  environment.  With  every 
appreciation  of  what  has  been  done  in  this  way,  one  has  had 
one's  eyes  opened  to  the  fact,  that  no  decisive  victory  can  be  won 
by  these  means  only,  against  the  evils  which  we  are  fighting. 
We  do  not  rely  any  longer  on  the  effect  of  improved  conditions 
of  environment.  The  fact  of  the  importance  of  Heredity  for 
the  continuation  and  improvement  of  the  race  is  at  last  getting 
recognition. 

There  is  nothing  original  or  striking  about  this  declara- 
tion ;  but  it  is  significant  as  coining  from  a  Minister  of 
State.  In  England  we  are  not  so  far  advanced  as  the 
Swedes.  At  the  Galton  Lecture  last  year  Mr.  Bateson, 
our  leading  experimental  biologist,  referred  to  what  passed 
on  the  same  occasion  in  1919.  (It  will  be  seen  that  I  am 
vain  of  a  compliment  from  Mr.  Bateson.) 

The  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  delivered  an  address  full  of  stimulus 
and  penetration,  indicating  many  indubitable  consequences 
which  recent  legislation  must  certainly  entail  upon  the  com- 
position of  our  population,  results  altogether  outside  the  pur- 
view of  those  from  whose  action  they  ensue.  Sir  Auckland 
Geddes,  in  proposing  the  vote  of  thanks,  after  sufficiently  indi- 
cating his  own  mode  of  thought  by  asking  us  to  look  with  com- 
placency on  the  danger  of  over-population — that  overwhelming 
menace  to  the  peace  of  the  world  and  the  stability  of  civilisation 
— proceeded  to  affirm  that  '  in  politics,  in  the  affairs  with  which 
Governments  have  to  deal,  it  is  not  accurate  knowledge  which 
matters,  it  is  emotion,'  concluding  with  an  exhortation  that  we 
should  let  ourselves  go  on  the  great  wave  of  emotion  sweep- 
ing the  nation  towards  the  millennium  which  the  Ministry  of 
Reconstruction,  unhampered  by  accurate  knowledge,  was 
preparing  for  us. 

A  nation  which  takes  for  prophets  irrationalists  like 
Mr.  Kidd  and  Mr.  Chesterton  has  no  right  to  complain 
of  emotional  politicians,  who  despise  accurate  knowledge. 
It  has  deserved  them.  The  anti-scientific  temper  is  our 
enemy  to-day — a  worse  enemy  than  the  Germans.  It 
has  become  shameless  and  aggressive,  taking  advantage 
of  certain  anti-intellectualist  tendencies  in  modern 


256  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

philosophy,  and  of  dissensions  in  the  scientific  camp. 
The  Revolution,  which  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago 
guillotined  Lavoisier,  '  having  no  need  of  chemists,'  is 
now  proclaiming  that  it  has  no  need  of  '  intellectuals  ' 
of  any  kind.  In  Russia  they  have  been  massacred  and 
exterminated  ;  in  our  own  country  they  are  ignored  and 
despised.  That  intellect  as  such  should  be  spoken  of 
with  contempt  is  a  new  thing ;  it  indicates  the  barbarisa- 
tion  of  public  and  social  life.  The  trained  mind  finds  it 
difficult  to  realise  how  utterly  confused  are  the  springs 
of  action  in  the  majority — how  self-interest  and  prejudice 
and  mob-contagion  and  sentiment  and  the  wish  to  believe 
are  combined  in  an  irrational  jumble,  out  of  which  emerges 
a  something  which  psychologists  dignify  by  the  name  of 
the  Group  Mind,  but  which  is  really  an  undisciplined  and 
unsifted  bundle  of  emotions  and  prejudices,  gathering  by 
preference  round  a  sentiment  rather  than  an  idea.  Such 
is  the  mentality  of  the  average  man,  who,  strong  in  his 
numbers,  treats  the  warnings  of  science  with  contempt 
and  spurns  all  authority. 

Eugenists  believe  that  unless  civilisation  is  guided  on 
scientific  principles,  it  must  come  to  ruin.  We  are  ready 
to  give  up  all  our  theories,  if  we  can  be  proved  to  be  in 
the  wrong  ;  but  we  stand  by  scientific  as  against  emotional 
or  sentimental  ethics.  We  can  understand,  though  we  pro- 
foundly disagree  with,  those  who  oppose  us  on  grounds  of 
sacrosanct  authority.  Just  as  the  political  economist  has 
no  radical  quarrel  with  the  man  who  says  '  Humanity  and 
the  fear  of  revolution  make  it  impossible  for  us  to  accept 
that  social  system  which  produces  the  aggregate  maximum 
of  wealth,'  but  has  a  great  quarrel  with  the  man  who  says 
'  Double  wages  and  halve  output,  and  our  trade  will  not 
suffer  at  all ' ;  so  we  know  where  we  are  with  a  man  who 
says  '  Birth-control  is  forbidden  by  God ;  we  prefer  poverty, 
unemployment,  wars  of  extermination,  the  physical,  moral 
and  intellectual  degeneration  of  the  people,  and  a  high 
death-rate  to  any  interference  with  the  universal  command 
to  increase  and  multiply  ' ;  but  we  have  no  patience  with 
those  who  say  that  we  can  have  unrestricted  and  unregu- 
lated propagation  without  these  consequences.  At  this 


EUGENICS  257 

early  stage  in  the  science  of  Eugenics,  a  great  part  of  our 
work  is  to  impress  upon  the  public  this  alternative. 
Either  rational  selection  must  take  the  place  of  the 
natural  selection  which  the  modern  State  will  not  allow 
to  act,  or  we  shall  deteriorate  as  surely  as  a  miscellaneous 
crowd  of  dogs  which  was  allowed  to  rear  puppies  from 
promiscuous  matings. 

The  Swedish  Minister  of  Education  said  rightly  that 
Nature  is  more  important  than  Nurture.  Professor  Karl 
Pearson  has  pointed  out  that  in  spite  of  unparalleled  and 
very  costly  efforts  to  improve  environment,  our  output 
of  first-class  ability  is  decidedly  less  than  it  was  a  hundred 
years  ago.  Our  policy  of  encouraging  nature's  failures 
and  misfits  to  multiply,  while  the  better  stocks  are  pro- 
gressively penalised  for  their  support,  is  producing  the 
results  which  might  have  been  predicted.  Professor  J.  A. 
Thomson  says  that  the  ratio  of  defectives  to  normal 
persons  more  than  doubled  between  1874  and  1896. 
Professor  Pearson  has  tabulated  a  long  list  of  natural 
characters,  and  another  long  list  of  nurtural  characters, 
and  has  worked  out  in  each  class  what  is  called  the  co- 
efficient of  correlation,  that  is  to  say,  the  percentage  of 
resemblance  between  members  of  the  same  family  in 
natural  and  in  nurtural  qualities.  His  conclusion  is  that 
the  influence  of  environment  is  not  one-fifth  that  of 
heredity,  and  quite  possibly  not  one-tenth  of  it.  It  is 
only  our  ignorance  of  this  fact  that  has  led  us  to  disregard 
nature  in  the  belief  that  improved  nurture  must  involve 
racial  progress.  The  Professor  ends  with  an  earnest  appeal 
to  realise  the  importance  of  the  problem,  since  otherwise 

we  can  give  no  aid  to  the  working  man  on  the  points  where 
he  needs  most  education  at  the  present  critical  time  in  our 
national  history.  Our  working  classes  need  more  than  ever 
some  other  guidance  than  that  of  the  politician  and  journalist ; 
neither  of  these  will  lead  them  to  see  beyond  the  horizon  of 
class  interest,  or  enable  them  to  look  upon  the  nation  as  an  ever- 
changing  organisation,  susceptible  of  advance  or  decay,  as  it 
obeys  or  disobeys  stern  natural  laws. 

Professor  Pearson  is  a  socialist ;  but  the  socialism  of  the 

man  of  science  differs  considerably,  it  will  be  seen,  from 

n.  s 


258  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

the  socialism  of  the  platform  and  the  pulpit.  His  con- 
stituency includes  the  unborn,  who  are  of  no  use  at 
elections. 

Precise  knowledge  is  at  present  available,  in  man,  for 
comparatively  few  characters,  and  these,  such  as  the 
inheritance  of  eye-colour  and  of  certain  relatively  rare 
deformities  and  diseases,  are  for  the  most  part  not  of 
very  great  importance.  Nevertheless,  some  interesting 
laws  have  been  discovered,  and  in  one  instance,  that  of 
mental  defect  or  feeble-mindedness,  the  results  are  of 
very  ominous  import  indeed.  Feeble-mindedness  follows 
simple  Mendelian  rules.  It  cannot  be  bred  out  of  a 
family  in  which  it  has  established  itself,  but  it  could  be 
eliminated  by  bringing  the  infected  stock  to  an  end. 
Unfortunately,  the  birth-rate  of  the  feeble-minded  is  quite 
50  per  cent,  higher  than  that  of  normal  persons.  Feeble- 
minded women,  being  unable  to  protect  themselves,  often 
have  an  illegitimate  child  nearly  every  year.  In  one 
workhouse  sixteen  feeble-minded  women  had  116  idiot 
children.  The  defect,  as  we  might  expect,  is  closely 
associated  with  pauperism,  vice,  and  criminality.  '  Again 
and  again,'  says  Dr.  Tredgold,  'in  investigating  the  family 
history  of  the  feeble-minded,  I  have  found  that  their 
brothers  and  sisters,  if  not  actually  defective,  were 
criminals,  prostitutes,  paupers,  or  ne'er-do-wells.'  Their 
numbers,  in  England  and  Wales,  amount  to  about  150,000. 
Each  of  these  probably  costs  the  State,  on  an  average, 
about  £1500.  These  facts  are  so  certain,  and  the  results 
so  mischievous,  that  the  Eugenics  Education  Society  for- 
sook its  usual  policy  of  not  meddling  with  legislation,  and 
actively  supported  the  Act  for  the  compulsory  segregation 
of  mental  defectives. 

There  are  many  other  diseases  in  which  the  influence 
of  heredity  has  been  clearly  traced.  Epilepsy  in  a  family 
is  considered  a  serious  mark  of  degeneracy,  and  is  often 
combined  with  other  physical,  mental  or  moral  defects. 
Havelock  Ellis  has  shown,  by  the  way,  that  the  dis- 
tinguished men  who  are  said  to  have  been  epileptic  were 
probably  not  so.  There  is  no  reason,  for  example,  to 
suppose  that  St.  Paul's  '  thorn  in  the  flesh  '  was  epilepsy. 
Haemophilia,  or  bleeding,  to  which  the  poor  little  Tsare- 


EUGENICS  259 

vitch  was  subject,  is  strongly  inherited  ;  but  in  females 
it  behaves  like  a  Mendelian  recessive,  remaining  latent 
through  life  ;  so  that  the  disease  is  transmitted  through 
the  apparently  healthy  sisters  of  a  bleeder.  Infected  males 
do  not  often  become  fathers  ;  if  they  do,  there  is  some 
reason  to  think  that  their  sons  escape.  Davenport  gives 
the  pedigree  of  a  family  in  which  there  were  nine  male 
and  nine  female  bleeders  ;  this  is  a  very  rare  exception  to 
the  rule  that  the  disease  spares  the  female  sex. 

In  order  that  it  may  not  be  thought  that  I  am  accusing 
the  poor  only  of  transmitting  hereditary  taints,  my  next 
example  shall  be  taken  from  the  higher  ranks.  In  1780 
(says  Mr.  Arnold  White) — 

a  marriage  took  place  between  a  wealthy  girl  in  whose 
family  there  had  been  insanity  and  a  healthy  man  in  her  own 
rank  of  life.  The  couple  had  three  children,  of  whom  one  was 
an  idiot  and  one  was  normal ;  neither  of  these  married  ;  the 
third  child,  who  was  apparently  normal,  married  and  produced 
nine  children,  of  whom  the  first  was  insane,  the  second  to  the 
fifth  either  insane,  suicides,  or  melancholiacs.  Of  the  subse- 
quent descendants  no  fewer  than  twenty  were  imbeciles,  neurotic, 
or  otherwise  abnormal.  Seven  more  were  doubtful,  and  twenty- 
five  were  normal. 

About  half  the  entire  stock  were  tainted,  which  is  what 
we  should  expect,  and  there  is  no  tendency  for  the 
abnormality  to  disappear. 

Professor  Karl  Pearson  gives  a  pedigree  of  inherited 
cataract.  A  blind  woman  had  two  daughters  blind  at 
forty.  Of  her  five  grandchildren  only  one  escaped  ;  the 
other  four  were  blind  by  thirty.  Of  her  fifteen  great- 
grandchildren thirteen  had  cataract.  Of  the  forty-six 
great-great-grandchildren  who  can  be  traced,  twenty  were 
already  of  feeble  sight  at  seven,  and  some  lost  the  sight 
of  both  eyes.  '  Forty  defective  individuals  in  a  stock 
still  multiplying,  which  nature,  left  to  herself,  would  have 
cut  off  at  its  very  inception  !  ' 

A  pedigree  of  deaf -mutism,  drawn  up  by  the  same 
author,  shows  twenty-two  cases  in  three  generations.  In 
this  family  there  were  four  marriages  between  two  deaf- 
mutes,  with  the  disastrous  results  which  were  to  be 
expected. 

8   2 


260  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

These  examples  might  easily  be  multiplied  tenfold. 
But  it  is  enough  to  say  that  the  proof  is  complete.  We 
do  not  know  how  these  abnormalities  originate ;  we  do 
know  the  only  way  in  which  they  may  be  eliminated. 

The  inheritance  of  ability  is  a  pleasanter  subject,  but 
much  more  complicated.  We  have  to  consider  the  social 
advantages  enjoyed  by  the  children  of  a  successful  man, 
and  the  assistance  which  the  father's  position  may  some- 
times give  to  his  sons  in  the  early  stages  of  their  career. 
But  the  evidence  is  that  mental  qualities  are  inherited 
to  exactly  the  same  extent  as  physical,  and  advantageous 
variations  to  the  same  extent  as  unfavourable.  Galton's 
book  on  the  inheritance  of  genius  ('  ability  '  would  have 
been  a  better  word,  as  he  admitted  himself)  is  well  known, 
and  all  who  have  studied  the  subject  are  familiar  with 
the  remarkable  pedigrees  of  the  Darwins,  with  their 
relatives  the  Wedgwoods  and  Galtons,  and  of  the  Bach 
family,  several  of  whom  were  eminent  musicians.  The 
Kembles,  in  the  same  way,  had  a  natural  gift  for  acting. 

From  my  own  observation  I  think  that  no  kind  of 
ability  is  more  strongly  inherited  than  scholarship,  in  the 
narrower  sense  of  the  word.  It  would  be  almost  safe  for 
a  classical  examiner  to  give  a  scholarship  to  a  youth 
called  Sidgwick,  Kennedy,  or  Butler,  without  reading  his 
papers.  If  in  this  place  I  give  as  an  example  the  pedigree 
of  my  own  mother's  family,  it  is  not  from  conceit  or 
egotism,  but  merely  as  an  instance  of  the  way  in  which 
a  quite  ordinary  family  record  will  confirm  the  views  of 
Eugenists. 

(1)  Ralph  Churton 
(2)  William       (3)  Edward  Churton       (4)  Thomas  Churton      (5)  Whittaker  Churton 


Kalph 

Churton 

!  

i                      I 
(6)  William      (7)J.W. 
Ralpn       Churton 
Churton 

(8)  Edward 
T. 
Churton 

(9)  Henrv 
N. 

Churton 

Susanna  =  (10)  William 
Mary       i            luge 
Churton    ! 

(11)  William  Ralph 
Inge 

(12)  Charles  C. 
Inge 

EUGENICS  261 

(1)  Archdeacon,    Scholar,    and  Divine.     ('  Dictionary  of 

National  Biography.') 

(2)  Scholar  and  Divine.    ('Dictionary  of  National  Bio- 

graphy.') 

(3)  Archdeacon,  Scholar,  Historian,  Minor  Poet.    ('Dic- 

tionary of  National  Biography.') 

(4)  Resident  Fellow  of  Brasenose.     Prominent  in  con- 

troversy with  Tractarians. 

(5)  Learned  Hebrew  Scholar. 

(6)  Scholar  of  Eton  and  King's  ;  Fellow  of  King's  ;  Canon 

of  St.  Albans. 

(7)  Proxime  accessit  for  Hertford  University  Scholarship 

in  his  freshman's  year  ;  died  aged  21. 

(8)  Scholar  of  Eton  and  Oriel ;  a  Colonial  Bishop. 

(9)  First   Scholarship   at   Eton ;    Newcastle   Scholar ;    a 

Colonial  Bishop. 

(10)  Scholar,  Fellow,  and  Provost  of  Worcester  College, 

Oxford. 

(11)  See  'Who's  Who.' 

(12)  Scholar  of  Eton  and  Magdalen  College,  Oxford. 

(13)  Archdeacon. 

No  males  who  lived  to  grow  up  are  omitted.  It  will  be 
seen  that  in  four  generations  no  member  of  the  family 
failed  to  win  a  certain  degree  of  success  in  scholarship, 
or  theology,  or  both.  Whether  my  orthodox  ancestors 
would  have  approved  of  '  Outspoken  Essays  '  is  a  very 
different  question. 

Many  problems  of  great  interest  and  importance  are 
being  zealously  investigated,  but  at  present  without  any 
very  certain  conclusions.  For  instance,  many  persons 
think  that  Eugenics  begins  and  ends  with  the  question  : 
'  Should  first  cousins  be  allowed  to  marry  ?  '  Evidence 
has  been  brought  that  various  bodily  and  mental  defects 
result  from  such  marriages  ;  but  the  prevailing  opinion  is 
that  when  a  stock  is  thoroughly  sound  there  is  no  risk 
whatever.  When  some  transmissible  defect  is  present, 
even  in  a  latent  condition,  it  is  obviously  undesirable 
that  the  next  generation  should  have  a  double  dose  of  it. 
A  kindred  question  is  whether  a  national  stock  is  improved 
by  miscegenation.  Continued  in-breeding  in  a  small 


262  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

society  is  certainly  prejudicial,  and  all  the  great  nations, 
not  excluding  the  Jews,  have  been  of  mixed  descent. 
But  unchecked  mongrelising  destroys  the  symmetry  of  a 
national  type.  Probably  alternate  periods  of  fusion  with 
immigrants  and  of  stabilising  the  results  give  a  nation  the 
best  chance  of  producing  a  fine  type  of  men  and  women. 

The  determination  of  sex  is  a  secret  which  nature  has 
so  far  resolutely  refused  to  part  with.  It  has  been  sug- 
gested that  femininity  is  a  Mendelian  dominant,  so  that 
every  woman  is  half  male,  while  every  male  is  purely 
masculine.  A  male  child  results  from  the  union  of  two 
male  germs,  a  female  child  from  the  union  of  a  male  and 
a  female  germ,  the  male  character  being  recessive.1  But 
this  does  not  account  for  the  greater  number  of  male 
births  which  exists  in  almost  if  not  quite  every  country. 
Still  less  has  any  reason  been  found  for  the  much  larger 
excess  of  male  births  in  certain  races.  Among  the  Turko- 
Iranians  the  male  children  outnumber  the  female  by 
1236  to  1000.  In  the  white  races  the  proportion  is  about 
1050  to  1000  ;  among  the  negroes  the  numbers  are  nearly 
equal.2  During  the  war  there  was  a  widespread  belief 
that  the  proportion  of  male  births  had  greatly  increased. 
The  source  of  the  belief  was  not  observation,  but  the 
notion  that  as  Providence  is  supposed  to  send  an  unusually 
abundant  supply  of  berries  for  the  birds  before  a  hard 
winter,  so  the  wastage  of  male  lives  in  the  war  was  being 
partially  made  good  by  an  extra  supply  of  boy  babies. 
The  forlorn  damsels  of  1916  were  apparently  to  console 
themselves  with  young  husbands  a  quarter  of  a  century 
later.  The  strange  thing  is  that  when  the  vital  statistics 
of  the  war-time  became  available  it  appeared  that  there 
had  actually  been  a  small  but  appreciable  increase  (in 
England  and  Wales  from  1039  to  1046)  in  the  ratio  of 
male  births.  This  phenomenon  was  common  to  all  the 

1  But  Mr.  J.  S.  Huxley  (in  Eugenics  fievi&v,  July  1922)  says:  'In 
all  mammals  which  have  been  investigated,  it  is  the  male  which 
produces  two  kinds  of  reproductive  cells,  of  which  one  is  the  female- 
determining,  the  other  the  male -determining. ' 

2  In   the   new    edition   of   Westermarck's    History   of    Human 
Marriage  (vol.  iii)  this  subject  is  discussed  with  much  detail.     But 
the  evidence  is  conuicting. 


EUGENICS  263 

belligerent  countries,  and  extended  to  some  neutrals 
affected  by  the  war.  No  explanation  is  forthcoming ; 
but  personally  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  insufficient 
food  may  have  slightly  increased  the  male  births.  Some 
experiments  with  animah  favour  this  theory  ;  but  it  is 
right  to  say  that  the  best  authorities  reject  it. 

Another  question  of  great  importance  is  whether  the 
age  of  the  parents  at  the  child's  birth  has  much  influence 
on  his  future  career.  Here  there  is  plenty  of  evidence, 
but  it  is  conflicting.  Vaerting,  of  Berlin,  finds  that 
distinguished  men  are  nearly  always  the  sons  of  young 
fathers,  if  the  fathers  were  themselves  distinguished, 
though  undistinguished  fathers  may  have  distinguished 
sons  up  to  the  age  of  sixty.  It  is  therefore  a  fatal  mistake 
for  intellectual  men  to  defer  their  marriage  ;  their  only 
chance  of  having  children  of  whom  they  may  be  proud 
is  to  beget  them  before  thirty.  On  the  other  hand, 
Havelock  Ellis,  whose  studies  in  this  field  are  always  of 
the  highest  value,  finds  that  the  distinguished  fathers  of 
distinguished  sons  were  above  the  average  age  when 
their  children  were  born. 

There  have  been  fifteen  distinguished  English  eons  of  dis- 
tinguished fathers,  but  instead  of  being  nearly  always  under 
thirty  and  usually  under  twenty-five,  as  Vaerting  found  in 
Germany,  the  English  distinguished  father  has  only  five  times 
been  under  thirty  and  among  these  five  only  twice  under  twenty- 
five.  Moreover,  precisely  the  most  distinguished  among  the 
sons  (Francis  Bacon  and  William  Pitt)  had  the  oldest  fathers 
and  the  least  distinguished  sons  the  youngest  fathers. 

It  seems  to  be  established  by  the  biometricians  that 
children  who  are  born  after  their  fathers  are  fifty  seldom 
attain  distinction,  and  that  on  the  other  hand  immature 
marriages  do  not  produce  good  results.  But  these  are 
counsels  based  on  averages  ;  nature  refuses  to  be  fettered. 
Napier,  the  inventor  of  logarithms,  was  the  son  of  a  little 
boy  of  sixteen. 

A  very  different  question  is  whether  alcohol  should  be 
added  to  the  short  list  of  racial  poisons  which  may  affect 
the  germ-plasm.  We  have  here  to  be  on  our  guard  against 
the  violent  prejudice  of  teetotal  fanatics.  But  my 


264  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

honoured  friend,  Dr.  Mjoen,  of  Norway,  who  was  my 
guest  at  the  first  Eugenics  Congress,  seems  to  have  demon- 
strated that  pronounced  alcoholism  in  the  parent  may 
gravely  injure  the  constitution  of  the  child.  The  difficulty 
in  this  question  is  that  alcoholism  is  usually  a  symptom 
or  consequence  of  degeneracy,  so  that  quite  apart  from 
any  direct  poisoning  of  the  germ-plasm  by  alcohol,  we 
might  expect  to  see  very  inferior  children  from  alcoholic 
parents.  Professor  Karl  Pearson  is  not  convinced  that 
the  ordinary  heavy  drinker  does  any  harm  to  his  children. 

It  is  gratifying  to  a  clergyman  to  find  that  not  only 
do  the  clergy  live  longer  than  any  other  profession  (this 
is  conclusively  proved  by  the  Registrar-General's  statistics), 
but  that  they  are  considered  the  most  desirable  of  parents. 
Vaerting  and  Havelock  Ellis  agree  that  the  list  of  dis- 
tinguished clergymen's  sons  is  long  and  illustrious  ;  and 
Sir  Francis  Galton  told  me  in  conversation  that  he  con- 
sidered the  clergy  the  very  best  sires  from  the  eugenic 
point  of  view.  I  will  not  speculate  on  the  causes  of  this  ; 
but  everyone  must  have  noticed  the  extremely  robust 
appearance  of  the  old-fashioned  parson  (the  younger 
clergy  are  mostly  drawn  from  a  different  class),  and  the 
facts,  as  ascertained  by  impartial  investigators,  are 
certainly  a  strong  argument  against  clerical  celibacy. 
On  the  other  side,  I  remember  an  Eton  boy  who,  when 
asked  why  the  sons  of  Eli  turned  out  badly,  replied  '  The 
sons  of  clergymen  always  turn  out  badly.'  He  attributed 
this  startling  generalisation  to  his  tutor,  who  was  himself 
in  Holy  Orders. 

Dr.  Schiller,  of  Oxford,  who  ought  to  give  us  a  book  on 
scientific  ethics  applied  to  sociology — for  there  is  no  one  else 
in  England  who  could  write  it  with  so  much  wit  and  wisdom 
— has  said  that '  civilisation  has  more  than  one  string  to  its 
bow;  it  is  at  present  bowstringing  itself  with  several.'  The 
most  expeditious  mode  of  strangulation  is  probably  war, 
a  ruinously  dysgenic  institution,  which  carefully  selects 
the  fittest  members  of  the  community,  rejecting  the  inferior 
specimens,  takes  them  away  from  their  wives  for  some 
of  the  best  years  of  their  lives,  and  kills  off  one  in  ten  or 
one  in  five,  as  the  case  may  be.  The  loss  inflicted  on  our 


EUGENICS  265 

race  by  the  Great  War  can  never  be  repaired  ;  the  average 
quality  of  the  parents  of  the  next  generation  has  been 
greatly  lowered,  and  this  evil  is  irremediable.  Hardly 
less  destructive  is  social  revolution,  as  we  have  seen  it  at 
work  in  Russia.  The  trustees  of  such  culture  as  existed 
in  Russia  have  been  exterminated  ;  civilisation  in  that 
unhappy  country  has  been  simply  wiped  out  in  a  few  years, 
and  the  nation  has  reverted  to  absolute  barbarism.  But 
there  is  a  third  bowstring  which,  because  it  is  always  round 
our  necks,  we  seldom  think  of,  and  which  because  it  seems 
to  be  inseparable  from  civilisation  as  we  know  it  we  hardly 
think  of  combating  ;  and  this  may  turn  out  to  be  our 
destined  instrument  of  death. 

The  differences  between  man  and  the  highest  subhuman 
animals  are  so  great  that  there  must  have  been  a  time  when 
he  was  progressing  comparatively  rapidly  :  the  time  when 
he  was  growing  a  larger  brain  and  more  serviceable  hands. 
From  the  time  when  he  began  to  be  civilised  he  has  pro- 
gressed no  further.  His  brain  is  no  larger  than  it  was  ten 
thousand  years  ago  ;  his  natural  weapons  have  atrophied  ; 
civilised  man  is  an  inferior  animal  to  the  finest  of  the  sur- 
viving barbarian  tribes.  To  put  it  shortly,  environmental 
development  supplanted  intrinsic  development ;  the  tool 
progressed,  the  user  of  the  tool  remained  stationary  or 
even  went  back.  This  process,  which  for  long  ages  moved 
very  slowly,  has  taken  great  strides  forward  since  the  in- 
dustrial revolution  a  hundred  years  ago.  Natural  selection, 
which  in  uncivilised  societies  weeds  out  all  nature's  failures, 
has  almost  ceased  to  act.  A  dwarf  can  mind  a  machine  ; 
a  cripple  can  keep  accounts.  The  general  handiness  and 
adaptability  which  is  second  nature  to  a  savage  is  useless 
in  an  age  of  specialisation.  Political  changes  have  deprived 
the  tax-payer  of  any  voice  in  the  disposition  of  his  money, 
and  enormously  expensive  machinery  has  been  set  up  to 
subsidise  the  incompetent  and  the  wastrel  at  the  expense 
ot  the.  unrepresented  minority.  The  inevitable  consequence 
is  that  the  unfit  increase,  while  the  fit  decay.  As  Dr. 
Schiller  says  : — 

The  particular  kind  of  ability  society  recognises,  the  cream 
the  society  wants,  is  always  rising  to  the  top ;  but  when  it  gets 


OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

there  it  is  always  being  skimmed  off  and  cast  away.  Could 
there  be  a  more  crushing  confutation  of  the  pretensions  of  the 
civilised  state  to  benefit  the  human  race  ?  It  is  continually 
pumping  up  from  the  lower  strata  the  particular  sorts  of  ability 
that  are  valued,  concentrating  them  in  the  upper  strata,  and 
there  destroying  fifty  per  cent,  ol  them  in  every  generation. 

We  are  thus  faced  with  a  progressive  deterioration  of 
our  stock,  due  to  the  suspension  of  natural  selection,  and 
the  entire  absence  of  anything  like  rational  selection.  The 
evil  has  been  greatly  increased  by  the  stupidities  of  ignorant 
and  unscientific  class-legislation.  We  are  threatened  with 
something  much  worse  than  a  regression  to  healthy  bar- 
barism. Let  anyone  contrast  the  physique  of  a  Zulu  or  an 
Anatolian  Turk  with  that  of  our  slum  population,  and  we 
shall  realise  that  we  are  breeding  not  vigorous  barbarians 
but  a  new  type  of  sub-men,  abhorred  by  nature,  and  ugly 
as  no  natural  product  is  ugly.  We  cannot  find  any  comfort 
in  the  argument  that  this  modification  of  environment  at 
the  expense  of  natural  endowment  is  in  the  line  of  evolution, 
and  therefore  not  only  inevitable  but  beneficial.  '  There  is 
a  way  which  seemeth  right  unto  a  man,  but  the  ends  thereof 
are  the  ways  of  death.'  So-called  progress,  which  is  a  rare 
episode  in  human  history,  has  before  now  led  a  civilisation 
into  a  blind  alley,  from  which  there  is  no  escape.  Our  tools 
have  become  our  masters  ;  to  all  appearance  we  work  for 
them,  and  not  they  for  us.  They  ought  to  be  merely  our 
instruments  for  realising  a  good  and  healthy  life ;  they  are  in 
fact  the  means  of  our  degeneration.  Mechanism  is  morally 
neutral ;  it  may  be  turned  to  good  or  to  bad  ends  ;  and  it 
is  character  only  which  decides  whether  it  shall  be  well  or 
badly  used.  A  degenerate  race  cannot  use  its  machinery 
to  any  good  purpose.  With  its  instinctive  shrinking  from 
intellectual  effort,  from  exertion  and  from  enterprise,  it  will 
concentrate  its  attention,  as  it  is  doing  already,  on  labour- 
saving  appliances  to  take  the  place  of  muscles  and  brains, 
till  we  shall  soon  have  a  generation  which  will  call  it  a 
grievance  to  walk  a  mile,  and  which  will  think  it  the  acme 
of  civilisation  to  be  able  on  every  occasion  to  '  put  a  penny 
in  the  slot '  in  answer  to  the  seductive  advertisement, '  You 
press  the  button,  we  do  the  rest.'  It  has  been  proved  a 


EUGENICS  267 

thousand  times  that  nature  takes  away  an  organ  which  is 
not  used.  All  our  faculties  were  evolved  during  long  ages 
in  response  to  what  were  then  our  needs,  by  the  stern  but 
beneficent  weeding  of  nature.  In  the  absence  of  any 
systematic  race-culture,  we  shall  gradually  slide  back  into 
feeble  and  helpless  creatures,  the  destined  prey  of  some 
more  vigorous  stock. 

This  is  one  of  those  insidious  diseases  the  advance  of 
which  is  so  slow  that  it  is  unperceived.  An  Englishman 
of  Elizabeth's  time  would  be  shocked  beyond  measure  if  he 
could  revisit  his  former  rural  haunts,  now  covered  with 
masses  of  unlovely  houses,  and  contemplate  the  types  of 
humanity  which  he  found  there.  But  we  do  not  reflect  on 
these  things.  The  new  population,  supported  more  and 
more  every  year  out  of  the  labour  of  the  industrious  and 
capable,  are  looked  upon  as  voters  and  as  receivers  of  doles  ; 
we  do  not  think  of  them  either  as  men  and  women  whom 
nature  intended  to  be  formed  '  after  God's  image/  or  as 
superfluous  mouths  which  ought  not  to  be  there  at  all. 
The  disease  is  insidious  and  in  a  sense  painless  ;  we  have 
many  other  things  to  think  about. 

There  are  no  doubt  many  who  will  stoutly  deny  that 
there  has  been  any  degeneration  at  all.  Perhaps  their 
confidence  may  be  shaken  by  evidence  which  has  lately 
become  available  from  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  The 
Americans,  who  are  generally  believed  to  be  behind  no 
other  nation  in  their  average  level  of  intelligence,  devised 
very  ingenious  tests  of  mental  development  for  the  troops 
whom  they  mobilised  in  1917  and  1918.  These  tests  were 
applied  to  1,726,966  officers  and  men  who  were  destined 
for  service  in  Europe.  The  examination  papers  were  so 
arranged  as  to  require  very  little  writing.  Alternative 
answers  to  simple  questions  were  given,  and  the  men 
marked  with  a  cross  the  answer  which  they  thought  correct. 
Most  of  the  questions  are  so  elementary  that  one  may  be 
surprised  that  they  were  set  to  grown  men.  For  instance, 
the  recruits  were  ordered  to  decide  '  Why  cats  are  useful 
animals,'  and  the  answers  among  which  they  were  to  choose 
were  (1)  Because  they  catch  mice;  (2)  because  they  are 
gentle  ;  (3)  because  they  are  afraid  of  dogs.  A  slightly 


268  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

harder  question  was :  '  Why  is  it  colder  near  the  poles  ? ' 
The  suggested  answers  were  :  (1)  Because  they  are  farther 
from  the  sun  ;  (2)  because  the  sun's  rays  fall  obliquely  near 
the  poles  ;  (3)  because  there  is  so  much  ice  there. 

The  examination,  though  extremely  simple,  was  a  com- 
prehensive test  of  mental  alertness  and  common  sense.  It 
is  reported  to  have  worked  admirably.  The  men  were 
divided  into  five  grades :  A  and  B,  men  of  superior 
intelligence  ;  C,  of  average  intelligence  ;  D  and  E,  men 
of  inferior  or  very  poor  intelligence.  It  was  found  by 
experience  at  the  front  that  the  men  who  had  been  placed 
in  the  two  highest  classes  were  in  every  respect  the  best 
soldiers,  braver,  steadier,  more  intelligent  and  able  to  learn 
their  duties,  more  able  to  take  the  initiative  in  an  emergency. 
The  two  lowest  classes  were  practically  useless  except  for 
the  simplest  tasks,  and  many  of  them  were  employed  only 
behind  the  lines.  Class  E,  it  was  reported,  were  a  loss  to 
the  country  ;  it  was  not  worth  while  to  send  them  out. 

Now,  what  are  the  statistics  of  these  tests  of  intelligence  ? 
American  psychologists  usually  class  the  capacity  of  those 
whom  they  examine  in  terms  of  '  mental  age/  the  standard 
being  fixed  by  the  average  proficiency  of  school  children  at 
different  ages.  The  two  lowest  classes  were  below  the 
mental  age  of  nine,  and  many  of  the  third  class  were  below 
the  mental  age  of  thirteen,  which  in  civil  life  is  the  limit 
below  which  an  adult  is  classified  as  a  '  moron/  or  feeble- 
minded person.  The  men  who  found  their  way  into 
classes  A  and  B  numbered  12  per  cent. ;  the  average  men 
66  per  cent. ;  and  the  inferior  men,  below  the  mental  age 
of  nine,  22  per  cent.  But,  as  has  been  indicated,  the 
standard  of  efficiency  was  much  lower  than  that  which  is 
adopted  in  civil  life.  If  '  feeble-mindedness  '  had  been 
made  to  cover  all  intelligences  below  the  mental  age  of 
thirteen,  47 '3  per  cent.,  nearly  half  the  entire  draft,  would 
have  fallen  below  the  line.  This  percentage  may  be  taken 
as  applying  very  nearly  to  the  whole  adult  male  population 
of  America,  since  though  a  few  highly  educated  men  were  no 
doubt  reserved  for  intellectual  war-work  at  home,  at  least 
as  many  imbeciles  were  not  admitted  to  examination  at  all. 

Although  it  does  not  bear  directly  on  our  subject,  it 


EUGENICS  269 

may  be  interesting  to  refer  to  the  comparative  intelligence 
of  American  soldiers  grouped  by  nationality.  England 
and  Holland  come  out  at  the  top  of  the  list,  a  result  which 
confirms  the  opinion  that  the  citizens  whom  we  lose  to  the 
United  States  are  much  above  the  average  of  those  who 
stay  at  home.  Of  the  negro  draft,  at  the  lower  end  of  the 
scale,  only  11  per  cent,  were  above  the  mental  age  of 
thirteen,  and  80  per  cent,  had  to  be  placed  in  the  two 
lowest  classes.  Among  other  nations,  the  Polish  draft  had 
70  per  cent,  below  the  mental  age  of  nine  ;  the  Italian 
63  per  cent.  ;  the  Russian  60.  Italy  seems  not  to  send 
out  her  most  intelligent  citizens.1 

America,  then,  the  classical  land  of  democracy,  is 
governed  by  voters  about  half  of  whom  are,  in  intelligence, 
children  of  less  than  thirteen  years  old.  It  will  hardly  be 
maintained  either  that  our  population  is  more  intelligent 
than  the  Americans,  or  that  the  addition  of  the  female 
voters  would  raise  the  standard.  That  is  what  we  have 
come  to  ;  our  legislators  are  chosen,  and  our  policy  deter- 
mined by  a  body  half  of  whom  would  be  scientifically 
classed  as  '  high-grade  morons.'  And  yet  both  in  America 
and  England  enormous  amounts  of  public  money  are  wasted 
every  year  in  attempting  to  educate  those  who  have  proved 
themselves  incapable  of  education. 

This  kind  of  national  degeneracy  corresponds  to  senile 
decay  in  the  individual.  Calamities  like  war  and  pestilence 
are  soon  recovered  from  if  the  national  stock  is  sound  ;  but 
a  nation  in  such  a  condition  as  these  figures  indicate  can 
certainly  not  afford  to  lose  three-quarters  of  a  million  of  its 
best  men.  Physicians  do  not  bleed  a  patient  who  is  dying 
of  pernicious  anaemia. 

Mr.  Hilaire  Belloc  has  lately  given  it  as  his  opinion  that 
our  civilisation  is  on  the  wane.  I  do  not  know  (since,  as  a 
Roman  Catholic,  he  is  probably  an  anti-eugenist)  on  what 
grounds  he  bases  this  opinion  ;  but  from  our  point  of  view 
he  is  probably  right.  Only  we  need  not  suppose  that  the 

1  In  Mr.  Lothrop  Stoddard's  new  book,  The  Revolt  against 
Civilisation,  the  significance  of  these  intelligence  tests  is  drawn  out 
with  great  force.  The  whole  book,  which  reached  me  too  late  to  be 
used  in  this  essay,  should  be  carefully  studied. 


270  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

case  is  hopeless.  Our  future  is  in  our  own  hands — to 
make  or  to  mar.  The  science  of  statistics  has  put  a  new 
weapon  against  disease  into  our  hands.  A  nation  can  now, 
so  to  speak,  take  its  own  temperature,  and  make  an 
intelligent  diagnosis  and  prognosis  of  its  own  condition. 
This  is  an  age  of  science,  though  scientific  ethics  have  an 
uphill  battle  to  fight.  The  results  of  neglecting  the  lessons 
of  science  are  becoming  more  apparent  every  year  ;  and 
if  we  do  not  learn  our  lesson  voluntarily,  other  nations  may 
force  us  to  face  the  facts. 

But  the  time  for  repentance  is  short.  The  evils  which 
we  deplore  are,  in  their  present  intensity,  a  new  phenomenon. 
Dr.  Stevenson,  in  a  valuable  paper  on  '  The  Fertility  of 
Various  Social  Classes  in  England  and  Wales  from  the 
Middle  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  to  1911,'  shows  that : 

The  increase  in  range  of  total  fertility  from  the  marriages 
of  1851-1861,  which  were  11  per  cent,  below  the  mean  in  the 
case  of  Class  I  (middle  class)  and  3  per  cent,  above  in  that  of 
Class  V  (unskilled  labour),  to  those  of  1891-1896,  which  were 
26  per  cent,  below  the  mean  in  the  case  of  Class  I  and  13  per 
cent,  above  it  in  Class  V,  is  very  apparent.  The  table  seems  to 
suggest  that  if  the  comparison  could  have  been  carried  twenty 
years  further  back  a  period  of  substantial  equality  between  all 
classes  might  have  been  met  with. 

He  adds  truly  that  we  have  to  face  '  a  formidable  fact — 
how  formidable  is  a  question  which  must  be  left  to  the 
consideration  of  authorities  on  eugenics.'  '  The  difference  in 
fertility  between  the  social  classes  is  a  new  phenomenon,  and 
on  that  account  the  more  disquieting/  It  is  a  deplorable 
symptom  of  official  ignorance  or  indifference  that  in  the 
census  of  last  year  the  questions  which  would  have  thrown 
light  on  the  progress  of  these  disquieting  symptoms  were 
deliberately  omitted. 

It  is  not  contended  that  the  upper  and  middle  classes  are 
necessarily  more  desirable  parents  than  the  self-supporting 
working  class.  There  is  some  reason,  perhaps,  for  thinking 
that  the  professional  class  in  this  country  is  the  best 
endowed  by  nature ;  but  without  insisting  upon  this, 
we  are  surely  justified  in  saying  that  the  disproportionate 
increase  of  Class  V  is  an  ominous  and  dangerous  symptom. 


EUGENICS  271 

Diagnosis  is  one  thing,  and  treatment  is  another.  In 
this  case,  the  first  requisite  is  to  get  the  diagnosis  accepted. 
But  a  writer  on  eugenics  may  reasonably  be  expected  to 
make  some  practical  suggestions,  without  which  he  may  be 
accused  of  uttering  mere  jeremiads. 

Negative  eugenics — the  prevention  of  the  multiplication 
of  undesirable  types — is  more  important  at  present  than 
positive — the  encouragement  of  the  better  stocks  to  repro- 
duce their  kind.  For  the  country  is  over-populated — to 
the  extent  of  ten  millions,  the  Prime  Minister  is  believed 
to  have  said.  Some  effective  check  upon  an  increase  which 
— excluding  the  war  period — amounts  to  about  ten  per 
thousand  per  annum  is  the  indispensable  preliminary  to 
social  and  eugenic  reform  alike.  It  is  useless,  under  present 
conditions,  to  lecture  the  well-to-do  on  the  duty  of  having 
large  families.  It  is  not  desirable  that  they  should,  and 
they  could  not  provide  for  them  in  their  own  station.  (And 
here  I  will  say  parenthetically  that  one  cause  of  small 
families  in  the  richer  classes  has  never,  so  far  as  I  know, 
been  noticed.  It  is  assumed  that  people  choose  to  have 
small  families  because  they  are  rich  and  selfish  ;  the  fact 
very  often  is  that  families  have  become  rich  because  they 
are  small.  The  money  of  a  dwindling  family  tends  to  be 
concentrated  in  the  hands  of  the  last  survivor  ;  and  a 
prolific  family  soon  ceases  to  rank  among  the  well-to-do.) 
What  we  should  aim  at  is  to  reduce  the  average  size  of  the 
family.  The  best  way  to  do  this  would  be  eiiher  to  reim- 
pose  school  fees,  or  to  enact  that  the  State  will  educate 
two  children  in  each  family  free,  but  no  more.  Persons 
with  a  definite  transmissible  taint  ought  not  to  be  allowed 
to  procreate.  Many  high-minded  men  and  women  already 
accept  this  duty  and  act  upon  it ;  the  reckless  must  be 
restrained  by  the  State.  For  it  is  obvious  that  when  the 
State  takes  upon  itself  the  burden  of  providing  for  all  the 
defectives  that  are  born,  it  is  entirely  within  its  rights  in 
insisting  that  the  number  of  these  worse  than  useless 
mouths  shall  not  be  wantonly  increased. 

Positive  eugenics  must  take  the  form  rather  of  improv- 
ing the  quality  than  the  quantity  of  births  among  the  fit 
Certificates  of  health  as  a  condition  of  lawful  marriage 


272  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

might  be  required  by  the  State  ;  they  involve  no  more 
'  inquisition  '  than  life  insurance,  to  which  no  one  objects. 
It  might  be  possible  to  combine  this  requirement  with  the 
obligation  for  both  parties  to  insure  their  lives,  of  course 
for  a  very  small  amount ;  this  insurance  might  constitute 
a  contributory  old  age  pension.  In  the  absence  of  such 
legislation,  the  custom  might  be  encouraged  of  demanding 
a  health  certificate  on  both  sides  before  marriage.  There 
have  been  several  cases  of  wicked  deception,  in  which  an 
imbecile  girl  has  been  carefully  trained  to  behave  like  an 
intelligent  person  in  society,  and  an  unhappy  man  has  been 
tricked  into  marrying  her.  And  of  course  every  bride  or 
bridegroom  has  a  right  to  know  for  certain  that  the  other 
party  is  in  a  healthy  condition  for  the  married  life.  These 
voluntary  certificates  might  come  to  have  a  considerable 
value.  They  might  include  not  only  a  medical  certificate 
of  health,  but  a  scientific  record  of  the  family  history, 
drawn  up  by  an  official  board,  which  could  be  made  self- 
supporting  by  fees.  An  untarnished  family  history,  so 
certified,  would  be  a  source  of  legitimate  pride,  and,  as 
public  opinion  becomes  more  enlightened,  would  be  of  more 
value  to  those  wishing  to  marry  than  five  thousand  pounds 
in  War  Loan.  Galton's  plan  of  offering  pecuniary  induce- 
ments to  the  Al  class  to  marry  and  have  children  is  not, 
I  think,  practicable.  The  possession  of  Al  children  ought 
to  be  prize  enough. 

In  almost  all  the  higher  walks  of  life  the  old  are  overpaid 
and  the  young '  sweated.'  The  young  presumably  acquiesce 
in  this  system  in  the  hope  of  becoming  fossils  themselves 
after  a  time.  But  it  is  eugenically  bad,  making  early 
marriage  impossible,  or  encouraging  the  dysgenic  art  of 
fortune-hunting.  This  evil  is  not  irremediable. 

The  present  system  of  taxation,  and  still  more  of  upper- 
class  education,  acts  as  an  artificial  deterrent  to  parenthood. 
The  co-education  of  all  classes  at  the  State  schools  would  be 
a  remedy,  but  the  Public  Schools  of  England  have  been  and 
still  are  a  great  national  asset,  and  the  loss  of  them  would  be 
a  calamity.  I  notice  with  great  regret  that  the  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  Commission  proposes  to  abolish  all  prize  scholar- 
ships at  the  Universities,  turning  them  into  sizarships. 


EUGENICS  273 

No  money  is  to  be  given  by  the  Colleges  to  which  the 
eleemosynary  taint  does  not  cling.  This  will  be  another 
blow  to  the  professional  claos,  and  it  will  be  recognised  too 
late  that  a  heavy  blow  has  been  struck  at  liberal  education. 
As  a  sop  to  the  class  which  has  been  taught  to  expect  doles, 
to  ask  for  them  without  shame  and  to  accept  them  without 
gratitude,  great  injury  has  been  done  to  the  class  which 
would  rather  suffer  privation  than  beg  for  charity.  The 
clever  public  schoolboy  will  lose  the  stimulus  which  makes 
him  work  to  secure  an  honourable  and  valuable  prize,  and 
the  pleasure  of  knowing  that  he  has  helped  his  father  and 
made  the  home  life  more  comfortable.  It  is  quite  right 
that  a  rich  parent  should  give  back,  as  a  free  gift,  his  son's 
scholarship  money  to  the  College.  This  has  often  been 
done,  and  would  in  the  future  be  done  still  more  often  ; 
but  the  recommendation  of  the  Commissioners  turns 
generosity  into  a  fine,  and  the  scholar's  gown  into  a  badge  of 
mendicancy.  From  the  point  of  view  of  eugenics,  it  will 
still  further  penalise  parenthood  among  our  best  families. 

The  prejudices  against  eugenics  are  still  strong.  They 
find  vent  in  such  strange  ebullitions  as  a  recent,  book  by 
G.  K.  Chesterton,  and  in  frequent  denunciations  on  the 
part  of  Roman  Catholics.  It  is,  however,  strange  that 
Christians  should  be  auti-eugenists.  For  though  religion  is 
the  strongest  of  nurtural  influences,  the  religion  of  Christ, 
like  eugenics,  makes  nature,  not  nurture,  its  end.  It 
aims  at  saving  the  soul — the  personality,  the  man  him- 
self— and  in  comparison  with  this  makes  very  light  of  his 
environment.  A  man  is  saved,  not  by  what  he  has,  or 
knows,  or  even  does,  but  by  what  he  is.  Christianity 
treats  all  the  apparatus  of  life  with  a  disdain  as  great  as 
that  of  the  biologist ;  so  long  as  a  man  is  inwardly  healthy, 
it  cares  little  whether  he  is  rich  or  poor,  learned  or  simple. 
For  the  Christian  as  for  the  eugenist,  the  test  of  the 
welfare  of  a  country  is  the  quality  of  the  men  and  women 
whom  it  turns  out.  He  cares  nothing  for  the  disparity 
between  births  and  deaths  ;  for  him  quality  is  everything, 
quantity  is  nothing.  And  surely  the  Christian,  who  is 
taught  to  fix  his  gaze  on  '  the  Kingdom  of  God,'  and  to 
pray  that  it  may  be  set  up  on  earth,  is  bound  to  think 


274  OUTSPOKEN  ESSAYS 

of  the  welfare  of  posterity  as  a  thing  which  concerns  him 
as  much  as  that  of  his  own  generation.  And  this  welfare 
is  conceived  in  terms  of  intrinsic  worth  and  healthiness. 
The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  contains  some  admirable 
eugenic  precepts,  reminding  us  that  a  good  tree  cannot 
bring  forth  evil  fruit,  nor  a  corrupt  tree  good  fruit.  '  Do 
men  gather  grapes  of  thorns,  or  tigs  of  thistles  ?  '  Christ 
may  not  have  been  thinking  primarily  of  heredity,  but  He 
enunciates  a  universal  law  which  applies  to  the  family  no 
less  than  to  the  individual. 

The  opposition  of  traditional  religion  may  be  excused 
on  the  ground  of  the  intense  conservatism  of  the  religious 
mind,  and  its  reluctance  to  accept  any  ethical  teaching 
which  does  not  bear  the  stamp  of  its  own  mint.  But 
what  are  we  to  say  to  the  steady  hostility  of  the  doctrin- 
aire socialists  to  any  interference  with  unchecked  and 
unregulated  procreation  ?  We  might  have  expected  a  very 
different  attitude,  both  from  the  advocates  of  increasing 
State  interference,  and  from  those  who  find  in  our  present 
social  order  a  conspiracy  against  the  manual  workers. 
The  socialist  government  of  Mexico  has  refused  to  inter- 
fere with  Mrs.  Margaret  Sanger,  the  propagandist  of 
birth-control,  on  the  ground  that  the  opposition  to  this 
movement  proceeds  from  persons  who  are  themselves  in 
possession  of  information  which  they  wish  to  withhold  from 
the  workers,  in  order  that  there  may  be  a  large  supply 
of  cannon-fodder  for  capitalism.  This  accusation,  however 
unfair,  is  what  one  might  expect  the  enemies  of  our 
industrial  system  to  bring  ;  and  it  is  surprising  that  it  has 
not  occurred  to  our  socialists  to  bring  it.  It  is  difficult 
not  to  have  a  suspicion  that  our  revolutionary  party  are 
counting  on  an  exacerbation  of  the  economic  stress  by 
over-population,  and  that  they  welcome  the  prospect  of  a 
condition  of  things  for  which  there  can  be  no  peaceful 
solution. 

Meanwhile,  we  still  hear  such  silly  objections  as  that 
we  value  brawn  above  brain,  and  that  the  eugenic  state 
would  prevent  the  birth  of  men  of  genius,  many  of  whom 
would  not  pass  the  eugenic  test.  It  is  true  that  men  of 
genius  are  not  always  desirable  fathers  ;  but  their  parents, 


EUGENICS  275 

who  possessed  no  genius,  are,  almost  without  exception, 
people  who  would  easily  pass  any  ordinary  tests.  Have- 
lock  Ellis  has  discussed  this  question,  and  has  found  that 
*  in  not  1  per  cent,  can  insanity  be  traced  among  the 
parents  of  British  men  of  genius,  and  there  is  not  a 
single  instance  in  which  the  parent  had  been  recognisably 
insane  before  the  birth  of  the  distinguished  child  ;  so  that 
any  prohibition  of  the  marriage  of  persons  who  had 
previously  been  insane  would  have  left  British  genius 
untouched.'  A  third  objection,  that  '  we  do  not  know 
what  we  want  to  breed  for/  need  not  trouble  us  now. 
We  know  very  well  the  kind  of  people  whom  we  do  not 
want ;  and  the  question  whether  general  or  specialised 
ability  is  the  greater  asset  to  a  nation  may  be  left  to 
a  future  time,  when  knowledge  is  more  advanced  and 
public  opinion  better  educated. 

It  is  possible  that  while  we  are  governed  by  '  high- 
grade  morons  '  there  will  be  no  practical  recognition  of 
the  dangers  which  threaten  us.  But  those  who  understand 
the  situation  must  leave  no  stone  unturned  in  warning 
their  fellow  countrymen  ;  for  the  future  of  civilisation  is 
at  stake. 


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